これにちは, I’m new to Japanese and was wondering if the community here could help me with a question in grammar. I understand the difference between は and が but when in a sentence, how do you know when the subject isn’t doing the action and “I” am doing the action?
I.e. 君が死ぬまでこいをしたい。
Context pretty much.
君が死ぬまでこいをしたい
There are two ways to parse this sentence:
A. （君が死ぬまで）somebodyがこいをしたい
B. 君が（somebodyが死ぬまで）こいをしたい
It is quite unlikely to be B, because たい is too strong of an opinion when talking about other people’s feelings and needs some softening.
Assuming scenario A, が is inside of a.. mm what’s the right terminology.. inside of the clause 君が死ぬまで.
So nobody is explicitly marked with either が or は as it relates to the action こいをしたい, and we have to assume who that might be.
Unless there’s more context, the standard assumption is that it is the speaker. Especially due to the たい being possible for the speaker, but unlikely for 2nd and 3rd parties.