Hi, everyone!
I came across this sentence in Migaku’s grammar lesson for the -こと/-事 nominalizer:
この学生は、化学の勉強が大切な事が分からない。
I could instantly understand that it means “the importance of studying chemistry,” but for the life of me I just can’t find any information on how those two subject markers work in relation to each other. Any ideas?
the way that i’m thinking about it is that the later one is the “main” one and that the earlier one is functioning as part of what English would call a clause.
sometimes it’s helpful to subtract things from a sentence while keeping the main gist of the meaning. so here the main gist of the sentence is AはBが分からない, where A is この学生. so what is B? (その)こと, in my reading. But what makes this particular こと special? which こと, in other words? well, that’s the こと about 勉強が大切だ.
to say it again in only english, “this student” doesn’t understand “it”, where “it” in english is “the fact that studying is important” (you could also say “the importance of studying”, but i like that “studying is important” translates 勉強が大切だ pretty closely).
When you’re nominalizing something, it’s likely there are going to be grammar elements within that segment. It’s possible for pretty much anything, including が, to be tied up in a package by a nominalizer. And then that nominalized thing can, of course, act like a noun, so if it can take a が, then that’s normal.
There are ways to reformulate sentences to avoid repetitive particles as well, but there’s nothing ungrammatical about it.
I would say it’s because you shouldn’t be thinking of them in relation to each other.
犬が好き
I like dogs
ピザが嫌いな人
People who hate pizza
ピザが嫌いな人が好き
I like people who hate pizza.
As you can see, it’s just the sum of its parts. The two がs don’t care that there is another が in the sentence because it doesn’t matter. They mean the same thing either way. You can have 5 if you want.
Thanks! It seems to me that the だ you added there could be the key here, as I seem to recall (probably from Cure Dolly sensei) that な was another “form” of だ or something like that. Or maybe it is that the copula is omitted here through the use of the second が. I’m wondering in that case if this is some sort of subordination, if that makes sense.
I get that, but I’m more specifically baffled by the first が, as I think the whole thing before the second one would be a noun clause.
That makes sense, although I didn’t say it was ungrammatical. I’m just trying to understand how it works and how to use it.
Thanks. This made me realize that I was assuming they were working together or something. So, trying to be more specific, is the first が a subject marker? If it is, is there a predicate/verb specific to it?
Maybe the issue that you are having is that
分かる (understand)
好き ((to) like)
出来る (be able to)
and the like would all take objects in English but require a が (not an を) in Japanese. This is why trying to understand Japanese grammar through an English framework can lead to confusion. I would recommend just noticing the patterns that occur and trust that you will pick it up with repetition and time. Otherwise I would say everyone’s answers so far show the imbedded clause pretty well. If I’m wrong in assuming that’s the issue, apologies. Just trying to be helpful.
The whole thing before the second one (化学の勉強が大切な事) is a noun clause.
If you wanted to write it as a stand alone, non-nominalized sentence, it would end with だ, the copula
化学の勉強が大切だ
But you use な to connect things like 大切 to nouns or nominalizers.
(As an aside, な is derived from what would have been にある in classical Japanese, if that helps you see where the verb is hiding)
I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I don’t think about Japanese grammar analytically and so I’m not sure enough about any terminology to confidently give an answer.
All I’ll say is that if it was it’s own sentence, 勉強は大切なこと is also right, but using that as a clause in a larger sentence we have to say 勉強が大切なこと(が/は、、、)
歯は白い would just be teeth in general are white but if you wanted to say the person who’s teeth are white you’d say
歯が白い人
Like technically you could also interpret this as “the teeth are white people”, but no one ever would. So if you wanted to say there is a person whos teeth are white you would have
歯が白い人がいる
As opposed to just
人がいる
For “there is a person”.
For stuff like this though, in novels especially you will find the smaller subordinate clause might have the が turned into a の. The meaning doesn’t change.
歯の白い人がいる.
It’s just how we have clauses modify stuff in Japanese.
化学の勉強は大切だよ！
この学生はそれが分からない
何が分からない？
化学の勉強が大切なこと