> 私にそれがよく分かりません

In this sentence, 私 is said to be a dative subject and それ to be a nominative
object. If they are named after their case markers, I wonder why we cannot
simply regard に and が as a nominative marker and an accusative marker
respectively? There seems no nominative-ness in それが to me, same thing for 私に.
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2022-05-08T16:04:16.317
94413
2022-05-09T22:38:09.937
2022-05-09T22:38:09.937
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question
grammar particles
The nomenclature of cases regarding dative and nominative
There are a couple points that cause some common confusion for English-
language learners of Japanese, particularly for these verbs like 分かる and 出来る.

Part of the problem is that the verb here describes a quality of a thing, and
not an action by a person.

In the comments, there is a description of が in this sentence as an object
marker. This それ is only an object **in English** , after translating. As
Japanese, this それ is the subject of the intransitive verb わかる.

わかる derives from verb わく ("to split, to come into pieces"), as the spontaneous
or potential, describing that a thing "comes apart" on its own or "can come
apart". This developed idiomatically to mean something closer to the English
phrasing _" it is apparent **how it fits together** "_.

The subject in Japanese is the thing that "comes apart". A better gloss in
English, in order to show more clearly how the Japanese verb functions, might
be _" to be understandable"_.

The に in the Japanese doesn't mark a "dative subject" so much as it marks the
**agent** of the action, exactly like in passive constructions. Just like in
the English phrasing, _" it is understandable **by me** "_. Or, to use the
phrasing further above, _" it is apparent **to me** how it fits together"_.
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2022-05-09T18:51:15.737
94446
2022-05-09T18:51:15.737
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94413
answer