eh??
We both agree that "誰が来た？” is grammatically ok right?
(you left out the question mark in your earlier post btw. I don't know if that was intentional or not.)

What i'm saying is that が establishes a connection between the verb and agent/subject. I'm saying that interrogatives can be the agent of a verb just as a noun can be an agent of the verb. I introduced the term 'variable agent' to make it conceptually easier to understand.

誰がケーキを食べた？ = who(interrogative acting as agent) ate the cake?
誰はケーキを食べた？ = who(interrogative), ate the cake?

With が the sentence makes sense. With は it doesn't because it reads like "as for who, ate the cake?" or like "who? ate the cake?"
It just makes no sense.

anyway I don't understand your point with the baseball example. The same ambiguity could work in japanese (except that you'd probably use さん after the name.)
eg:
誰が野球をしますか？ = Who plays baseball?
誰が野球をしますか？ = Does Dare (some guy called Dare) play baseball?

the hearing impaired thing: it doesn't surprise me, because they would grow up without necessarily hearing the difference between the two sounds, and so wouldn't be able to deduce the correct rules, kind of like how a lot of japanese can't correctly pronounce l/r. Kids learn to speak before they learn to read, so they would probably just use は or が depending on how they heard it most of the time. I've read before that hearing impaired people often have trouble hearing/distinguishing certain sounds (for example t's and s's) depending on their frequency range. I think the reason gaijin don't use it correctly has more to do with low exposure and output centric methods than learning from books though(as magamo suggested).

I so painfully needed this が explanation/study. Truth is, when I first started Japanese (around 2 years ago) I didn't so much open the door to it but barge through the wall and twist my ankle on the way in. I picked up some VERY bad habits which I'm starting to rectify only now. My Japanese is passed beginner I think (I've most everything in ADoBJG licked) but it's all built on a hideously crappy foundation.

I'd understand things but feel uncomfortable about it. I thought I'd be doomed to this feeling forever because it's Japanese and I'm an English speaker and that's just the way it is but now I'm starting to see how that can go. I'm quite excited to get a glimpse of that suddenly.

I'd gotten in such a bad habit with が that it's become hard to rewrite my fixed way of thinking of it. So much so that I was actually drawing stuff like this in Paint a few days ago:



...

Well anyway, I'd just like to thank everyone for the help. I'll try and cement the idea (perhaps along with a few others) over the next couple of days, then I really get the impression things can only be up from here!

Edit - Oh yeah, I have a question though. I just saw this sentence on the Famitu Website:

中国国家機関が、中国でのオンラインゲームビジネスにおいて、外資企業の運営業務への出資や関与が禁止を発表している。

Is the final verb "発表している" the subject of 中国国家機関が or 出資や関与が? I'm assuming the former but then would that mean there is an implied 「である」 at the end of 禁止?

Last edited by Virtua_Leaf (2009 October 23, 8:45 am)

Fillanzea wrote:

Virtua_Leaf wrote:

中国国家機関が、中国でのオンラインゲームビジネスにおいて、外資企業の運営業務への出資や関与が禁止を発表している。

Is the final verb "発表している" the subject of 中国国家機関が or 出資や関与が? I'm assuming the former but then would that mean there is an implied 「である」 at the end of 禁止?

The former indeed. What's implied, I think, is something like 禁止であること. を applies to [外資企業の運営業務への出資や関与が禁止] as a whole.

Oops, forgot the こと. But eeexcellent, it's all falling into place at last.

yudantaiteki wrote:

containing the 'zero pronoun' subject, ie. 「私は(zero pronoun here, in this case "I")行きました」

I really dislike this explanation; I'm pretty sure it's from that Rubin book but I've never seen it anywhere else.

Just dragging this remark up because I've been reading the bits on wa/ga/topic/subject in Shibatani's _The Languages of Japan_, and some of what he's saying in chapter 11 looks to me like a very similar way of looking at things to Rubin's ideas:

the subject slot of the comment structure is posited but left unfilled, as indicated by the empty category marker [e]. This empty subject is to be understood as referring to (or, technically, a variable bound by) the topic

I could well be misinterpreting it, but I thought I'd mention it in case you were interested.

Yes, Shibatani has quite a long discussion of two-が constructions. He takes the view that there's a set where the first が-marked NP is the subject (eg 太郎が英語が得意だ) and a different set where the second one is (including 象が鼻が長い), where 'subject' here is defined via things like the subject-honorification criterion you mentioned before. He then gives 先生に英語がよくわかる as an example sentence where the subject is marked by に.

So I think he might say that the second part of "が defines the subject and は never does" was true but not the first.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Actually in looking around the web, it seems like this topic is confusing for Japanese speakers too.  I found several sites where native Japanese were asking what the subject is of the famous 象は鼻が長い

I think the suject of that sentence is clearly 鼻. I consider its literal translation to be something like this:
Elephant(s), nose (is) long.
Nose is the subject of the ommitted verb です. I'm sure someone will tell me です isn't a verb but whatever. So again が links the subject(鼻) and the verb(です）, and は marks that what follows is a comment about the topic of (unspecified) elephant.

pm215 wrote:

He then gives 先生に英語がよくわかる as an example sentence where the subject is marked by に.

に does not mark the subject. The sentence translates to something like:
to teacher, english (is) well understand.
English (marked by が) is the subject of the intransitive verb わかる. に is indicating who english is well understood by.

Am I beating a dead horse here?

nadiatims wrote:

yudantaiteki wrote:

Actually in looking around the web, it seems like this topic is confusing for Japanese speakers too.  I found several sites where native Japanese were asking what the subject is of the famous 象は鼻が長い

I think the suject of that sentence is clearly 鼻. I consider its literal translation to be something like this:
Elephant(s), nose (is) long.
Nose is the subject of the ommitted verb です. I'm sure someone will tell me です isn't a verb but whatever. So again が links the subject(鼻) and the verb(です）, and は marks that what follows is a comment about the topic of (unspecified) elephant.

です is not a predicate when it follows an -i adjective.  An i-adjective like 長い includes the copula in it, so that it means "is long" and not just "long".  In 長いです, the です adds no meaning but simply changes the politeness level.  Only when です follows a noun (or na-adjective) does it function as the copula.

pm215 wrote:

He then gives 先生に英語がよくわかる as an example sentence where the subject is marked by に.

に does not mark the subject. The sentence translates to something like:
to teacher, english (is) well understand.
English (marked by が) is the subject of the intransitive verb わかる. に is indicating who english is well understood by.

Note that what you are responding to here is from something written by a native Japanese speaker who is one of the foremost specialists in the world on Japanese linguistics.  His definition of "subject" may not match up with what you're used to seeing, and it might not be useful for learners (I'm not sure if it is or not), but you can't just completely dismiss it either.

pm215: Yeah, there's the 自分 test also -- I usually don't use that one because I think you need to be a native speaker to know which noun 自分 must link up to.  (Or at least I don't have the "feel" for 自分 to do that.)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 25, 8:11 am)

Well, I also think that when you get into the *difference* between は and が, thinking of が as a "subject marker" doesn't really help.  Unless you start getting into circular definitions and notions of "subject" that are totally different from English grammar, I don't see how the concept of a "subject marker" helps you learn how あの人は先生 and あの人が先生 differ and when you would use each one.

to continue:

215 wrote:

So if (like him) you define "subject" as "the noun which has a collection of grammatical properties including control-of-honorification, jibun-binding, etc etc", then in this sentence the subject is 先生.

Well fair enough, if he redefines "subject" to fit his explanation then I can't argue with that. My definition of subject may well be wrong. My study of grammar is limited to my study of Japanese and teaching of English. I was of the opinion subject refers to the 'agent' of the verb/copula (thing verbing or being verbed), be it passive/active or transitive/intransitive as in the following examples:
Tom is American. トムがアメリカ人だ。
Tom ate lunch. トムが昼ご飯を食べた。
Tom jumped.　トムが跳んだ。
Tom fell. トムが落ちた。
Tom was eaten by a lion. トムがライオンに食べられた。

At any rate が definately defines the agent of the verb. (I think this is undeniable.)
What the target of the 自分 binding/ honorification is does not change this fact.
Serious question: if subject doesn't mean agent, than what is the relevance of the 'subject' anyway? what does it mean and why do you want to know it?

IceCream wrote:

The problem is that it seems like nadiatims has not studied an academic subject (i assume he / she took something more practical?) And doesn't see either the need for or the difficulties with, defining what a subject is, or what would count as a theory or definition. And is simply confused by that lack of understanding and assumes that people who study grammar are just making problems with が or have just never thought about it properly.

I may have been using the wrong definition of 'subject' but I'm not confused. I have read and understand what people are saying on this thread. I'm not anti-acadamia. Nor am I anti-grammar as such. I just think a lot of people have a really poor conceptual understanding of how language actually works and one of the reasons for this is the way in which grammar is usually taught.
I also don't think there is such as a thing as "incorrect grammar". When somebody says or writes something that triggers that "wtf? this is ungrammatical" response in our head, it's because that person has used word definitions/ word ordering that is contrary to what we are familiar with. Our brains process language in real time as it enters our ears, and convert it to meaning based on patterns formed from previous experience. So imagine the sentence "Mary told Tom to quickly run home."
A native english speaker would hear this sentence one word at a time and think:
Mary   *familiar english name, at start of sentence. The next word will be the action  mary takes(verb), or how she took it(adverb).
told    *oh I see she told someone something. The next word will be who she told(indirect object)
Tom    * oh naruhodo, Tom is the one she told. The next part will be what she told him...
to       * next will be an action or adverb. based on the familiar pattern [verb][indirect object][to][some other verb]
quickly  * right, she told tom to take some action quickly. hmm I wonder what action...?
run      * ok she told him to run. Where to I wonder?
home

So similarly with japanese, we hear a word, plonk it in memory, and anticipate the next word to formulate meaning one chunk at a time. eg.
トム      * a name. What follows will probably be some particle. No way of knowing just yet.じゃ、次は。。。
に       * to ...tom to = to tom. naruhodo something directed at tom
メーリ  * a name. to tom, mary
が　　　* to tom, mary took some action(agent specifying particle が)...what action?
はやく　* to tom, mary quickly...
帰れ　*  to tom, mary quickly return (command). this is a command, so it's not the action taken by mary. presumedly its directed at tom.
と       * quote particle.
言った * to tom, mary said quickly return.

If the agent is "verbing or being verbed," then both Tom and the lion would be agents; the lion is eating, Tom is being eaten.

From Wikipedia:
In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation.

You can only be the agent if you're acting, not if you're being acted upon.

(Wikipedia reminds me about what's significant about the difference between agents and subjects: 'subject' is a category that relates to the grammatical structure of the phrase, 'agent' is a category that relates to what the sentence means. So, because the meaning of the sentence doesn't change whether "The lion ate Tom" or "Tom was eaten by the lion," the agent has to be the same for both sentences.)

IceCream wrote:

but seriously, 分かる = to be understood = passive = english IS the abject. Is it english that is the thing understood in this sentence, or the sensei?

OK, but why are we translating this active Japanese verb as a passive English "to be understood" rather than "understand" ? I think the answer boils down to 'so that the が-marked noun becomes the thing-being-verbed in an English passive sentence', which is the kind of over-stretching of the original intuitive idea I had in mind.

To put it another way: we started off with a kind of intuitive definition of the abject as 'thing doing or being done to', and we're looking for some objective property in the grammar which matches up with this intuition. The obvious candidate is "が-marked noun", but this (although it matches up mostly) doesn't seem to match our intuition here, or in sentences like 太郎が花子が好きだ (where we'd like 太郎 to be the abject, I think, but we have two が-nouns to choose from).

So we can look for some other grammar property that maybe is a better match. Shibatani's proposal is 'the noun which controls おVになる and matches 自分 (and another property which is a bit complicated to explain at this point)'. These things do seem to all line up, which is interesting in itself and suggests we're onto something. And they also fit our intuitive idea of abject in more of the corner cases than our が-noun idea. So given these two objective definitions, this one seems like it would be a better one to apply the 'abject' label to than the other.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a linguist, I just find this stuff interesting, and trying to explain it helps me understand it. Hopefully yudantaiteki will correct me if I'm getting this wrong...)

I have more to say on this topic, but it's late and I need to sleep. So for the time being, I'll leave you with yahoo!辞書's definition of 分かる:

yahoo wrote:

［動ラ五（四）］

１ 意味や区別などがはっきりする。理解する。了解する。「物のよしあしが―・る」「言わんとすることはよく―・る」「訳が―・らない」

２ 事実などがはっきりする。判明する。「身元が―・る」「答えが―・る」「持ち主の―・らない荷物」

３ 物わかりがよく、人情・世情に通じる。「話の―・る人」

４ 一つのものが別々になる。わかれる。

So looking back at our problem sentence:
先生に英語がよくわかる
the meaning of 分かる is more like 'to be clear'.
So its like:
literal meaning: to the teacher, English very is clear.
implied meaning (standard textbook translation): teacher understands english very well.

the significance of this is that it's the implied meaning that gives the illusion of the teacher being the 'abject' (IceCream's term) of the verb. (abject= thing verbing or being verbed)
So this sentence doesn't challange my rule. It is still the が marked word that claims 'ownership' of the verb. And it is the definition of said verb that tells us whether that 'owner'(abject) is acting passively or actively (verbing or being verbed).

Also, please note I already explained how my rules handle sentences with 2 or more が's. (check my last post on page3)

Last edited by nadiatims (2009 October 27, 11:31 am)

My issue with the 'embedded sentence' idea is that the supposed embedded sentence doesn't really behave the way other embedded sentences do. Let's take 彼がこの部屋が狭いと言う as an uncontroversial example where the second が definitely is in an embedded sentence.
(1) the embedded sentence connects to something in the outer one, eg a quoting particle (と) or a noun it modifies; if it modifies the outer verb then it takes adverbial form (eg 速く走る)
(2) you can shuffle components of the outer sentence around, eg この部屋が狭いと彼が言う
(3) if you inflect the whole sentence (eg for tense) the inner sentence doesn't change, only the outer one, eg 彼がこの部屋が狭いと言った

None of this seems to  be true for something like 象が鼻が長いです:
(1)  鼻が長い isn't connecting to a particle or noun, but it's not adverbial either
(2) shuffling produces obvious nonsense: 鼻が長い象がです
(3) inflection affects the 'embedded sentence': 象が鼻が長かったです

...so the obvious conclusion would be that it isn't in fact an embedded sentence at all.