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I came across the following sentence in an exercise, with the following
propositions:

> 森さんが飼っている魚は、とてもきれいな色_____している。
>
> A. に
>
> B. を
>
> C. で
>
> D. が

I learnt that する is used with が when talking about something that has an
effect on senses, like "大変な音がする" or "いい匂いがする". So I picked D, but the solution
was B.

What did I understand wrong? In what respective cases are "~をする" and "~がする"
appropriate and correct?
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2019-07-20T22:30:25.423
69611
2020-06-26T10:48:42.540
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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question
particle-が particle-を
~色がする or ~色をする?
To answer your question, only をしている is correct and がしている is wrong in this
example.

Actually, those two are confusingly similar but unrelated. What the verb する
means in the two idioms are different things.

  * が **する** → to strike the (i.e. your) sensation
  * を **する** → to wear some (persistent) traits

がする is to describe an ephemeral sense (stimulus) that can appear and
disappear. For example, there is no sound when you hear nothing, and no odor
when you smell nothing, because those sensations are direct interaction
between your organ and the medium. Usually you can understand Xがする as "I sense
X".

> 誰もいない部屋から物音がした _I heard something from an empty room_  
>  とてつもなく悪い予感がする _I have (= get) an extraordinarily bad feeling_

However, we don't perceive colors likewise. Although today we know that
everything is quantum, most people still take it for granted that a red apple
never ceases to be red if you look aside. In other words, we believe that the
redness belongs to the apple, not to the light (unless it's a laser ray) in
the usual sense. That makes がする unusable in that sentence. But if you had some
eye disease and saw a red color for no reason, 赤い色がする would make sense.

Some previous answers tell that をする is for visual stimuli, but this is
somewhat superficial. We do say:

> 優しい性格をした人 _a person who has a gentle personality_  
>  彼女は高い声をしている _she has a high voice_  
>  どんな育ち方をしたらこんな絵が描けるのか _what kind of life makes (= experiencing what life
> history) him/her create such a drawing_

Of course, 彼女は高い声をしている doesn't mean she emits a high frequency wave 24 hours,
but that she does when she speaks. 高い声がしている means that you hear a voice
persisting as long as it may.

One grammar point is that, since をする depicts a sort of state rather than
action, the dictionary form is virtually unusable. You should always say をしている
and をしていた as the main verb of the sentence.

* * *

**PS**  
By the way I don't think the original quiz is very well thought out. You can
easily find a context where A is valid, and if you stretch your imagination, D
actually might be.

> A: ～とてもきれいな色 **に** している  
>  → Mori-san makes their fish have a beautiful color (painted?)
>
> D: ～とてもきれいな色 **が** している  
>  → maybe some alien fish that shines (emits light) like a mirror ball?
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2019-07-22T13:38:47.703
69631
2019-07-22T14:04:56.337
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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answer