You mean the first が, not the second, right? So you’d see it as analogous to スイスの物価が高い?
I guess that works in terms of interpretation, and maybe there’s an etymological relationship, but IMO it’s simpler to just consider certain adjectives as being sort of “adjectival phrases” (物価が高い, 鼻が高い, 運がいい, that sort of thing). That’s not really grammatically confusing either - it’s perfectly possible to have more than one が-marked subject in a sentence, as long as they’re not both the subject of the same clause/phrase. Considering in スイスが物価が高い, 物価 is the subject of the adjectival phrase 物価が高い and スイス is the subject of the sentence.
With your interpretation, making “スイスが(or の)物価” the subject, I’d say you’d also run into problems when applying multiple adjectives - スイスが物価が高くて寒い doesn’t mean Swiss goods are expensive and cold, 寒い applies to スイス, in conjunction with 物価が高い.
I think you’ve basically got it, if I’m reading you correctly.
物価が高い is a sort of “miniature sentence within a sentence” if you will (and if that’s your conclusion too, then I guess you finally understand what a clause is ), and that miniature sentence as a whole functions as an adjective. That’s a bit different than seeing the first が as a の, because that interpretation lifts 物価 out of the adjectival phrase/clause/thingamajig/the miniature sentence thing and makes it part of the surrounding clause instead.
So yes, 高い applies to 物価 via the second が, and 物価が高い applies to スイス via the first が, same as 寒い.
Since this is a forum for Japanese-as-second-language instruction, the third school you’ve listed gets my vote!
In all seriousness, the comments in this thread essentially suggesting that it’s better to “think in Japanese” to analyze Japanese grammar really resonate with me.
I’ve occasionally had an incredibly difficult time when someone explained a Japanese sentence using Western grammatical jargon. It felt like looking through at least a two layers of dirty windows: my knowledge of Western grammar terms is shallow at best, and Western ideas usually don’t map 1:1 into Japanese without some rather tortured logic.
To be fair, using Japanese 文法 terms would be just as opaque to me.
The grammar explanations I have the easiest time grasping come from Jay Rubin’s book “Making Sense of Japanese” and the Cure Dolly videos. I previously thought it was because they were aimed at beginners, but after you made this point I realize it’s probably because they are by and for learners of Japanese as a second language, and they expressly warn against trying to apply Western ideas too narrowly.
Well, my inadequacies are now feeling pretty exposed. Anyone else?
I’d like to formally invite you and @Kazzeon to the sentence diagramming thread. The above would be MUCH easier to parse with some sort of diagrams showing the breakdown! We are trying to figure out a simple visual language to at least show the syntactical breakdown of sentences like this (without going too far into semantic meaning).
The initial question was “why is が not a topic marker”, to which the answer is rather simple: because が is used, among other things, to mark a subject as being new information, which is exactly the opposite of a topic. That’s not the only function that が has, but - it just wouldn’t make sense to call it a topic marker.
The reason “why” Japanese has “double が” constructions is discussed quite a bit in linguistic theory. Some would say these are “double subject” constructions, others also argue (with evidence) that in constructions such as Xが好きだ, X is really an object, just marked in a nonstandard way. As usual, these discussions arise because nobody can agree about what a “real” subject or object is. (That doesn’t make the discussions pointless; it rather shows how the argument can be complex and that there are many edge cases).
In general, grammars of natural languages are not always neat and tidy. In general, a Japanese sentence has one subject which is marked with は or が (or left implicit), but some constructions may be a little bit different, and that’s not totally unexpected.
The sentence would normally be translated as “X likes [that]” but 好き is an adjective that can mean well-liked, and だ normally indicates a copula, so: “X is well-liked”. But this has a different meaning in English.
I need to ponder this.
Edit:
Need sleep, but “X is Liking” makes sense and still works as a copula. Noun vs. adjective.
or you can also change how you understand what 欲しい means.
the root of this is whole issue is assuming that japanese adjectives function like in english, where the subject (the thing a clause is about) is also the agent (the one doing the action).
I don’t think there’s any particular requirement for that to be the case in japanese. 欲しい can just be equivalent to “I want” with the thing “I want” being the subject. there’s no conflict with 猫 being the subject here, except when you try to translate to english…
this separation between subject and agent is kinda what you capture somewhat clumsily by translating to a passive construct (the cat is wanted by me).
I realise I’m using a somewhat more technical definition of subject than what you learn in english grammar as you learn it at school, but that definition is specialised for english (where subject = agent) anyway, so it doesn’t apply to japanese in the first place.
In fact, it has to be the the speaker because you can’t ascribe 欲しい to a third party. So not only does it act as a full predicate as an I-adjective, it also encapsulates the subject as oneself.
I think this is another sticking point for people learning Japanese.
I get what you’re trying to say, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say you can’t ascribe it to a third party though.
I think it’s also important to note that 欲しい is just like any other い-adjective in that sense, there’s nothing particularly special about it. You just don’t generally make statements of fact about others unless you have certainty. If that certainty is there, though (or you’re quoting or explicitly stating you think something for instance) you can definitely use 欲しい for others.
Yeah, the way I interpret it (but correct me if I’m wrong) is if I say 猫が欲しい about someone else without any particular reason to make it such a strong statement, that’s like I’m deciding for them what they want, which honestly isn’t that different from English - if I say “my sister wants a cat” despite my sister never telling me she wants a cat, that’s a bit weird, because that’s not really something I get to decide for her. We just don’t feel particularly strongly about it when it’s something inconsequential, and I don’t think the same degree of certainty is required to be acceptable (for example, if she’s holding a cat at the time and seems enamored, I could say “she wants a cat” and she’ll just correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s “enough” in Japanese to forego がる).
Same with other adjectives, really. If someone does something wrong and I say “my wife is angry about that”, that’s pretty damn presumptuous of me unless I have some indication of that being the case.
Sorry for the rambling, this is how I process things
after 10 years of studying on and off this whole topic (or is it subject) still makes me feel really dumb. I need to experience ego death or something to get the English proclivities out of my head and properly learn this apparently simple distinction
Simple is relative. And by no means are simple and easy the same thing. Getting out of the solar system is super simple: just go really really fast. Turns out it’s really hard to do that, but that doesn’t change the simplicity of it.
Running into assumptions you’ve held your entire life that don’t carry over to whatever language you’re learning (or have learned to whatever extent) is just the reality of language learning. Turns out nearly nothing of what we take for granted, no matter what our native language may be, is universal - but the thought patterns are there, and they’re hard to break.
), and that miniature sentence as a whole functions as an adjective. That’s a bit different than seeing the first が as a の, because that interpretation lifts 物価 out of the adjectival phrase/clause/thingamajig/the miniature sentence thing and makes it part of the surrounding clause instead.
