This sentence is from Death Note, specifically on how to use it.

This sentence is written in-universe using English. It states, “This note will
not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when
writing his/her (the victim’s) name.”

I understand that 書く is modifying 人物, which would lead me to believe that 人物
is in reference to **the person writing**.

However, 人物 being the owner of 顔 would imply that 人物 is the person whose name
is **being written**.

What is going on, grammatically speaking? Is this sentence ambiguous to native
speakers? Would it be any more or less ambiguous without the story context of
Death Note?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-12-28T20:56:44.617
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2020-08-04T02:10:11.000
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question
grammar usage parsing relative-clauses ambiguous-relative-clauses
Parsing the sentence 書く人物の顔が頭に入っていないと効果はない
Grammatically, this is an inherent ambiguity of Japanese relative clauses. A
Japanese relative clause works by changing the word order and **dropping** a
case particle like が, を or に, and therefore it may result in an ambiguous
phrase. This typically happens when both the subject and the object are
humans.

> 人物 **を** 書く。 (Someone) write the (name of the) person.  
>  書く人物 the person ((whose name) someone) writes / the person whose name is
> written  
>  (人物 is the object of 書く)

> 人物 **が** 書く。 A person writes (something).  
>  書く人物 the person who writes (something) / the writer  
>  (人物 is the subject of 書く)

For example, あげた人 can refer to either a giver or a receiver depending on the
context. From AがBをCに紹介する ("A introduces B to C"), you can construct 紹介する人,
which can be interpreted either as "someone who introduces B to C" (=A),
"someone who A introduces to C" (=B), or "someone who A introduces B to" (=C).

See also: [が in subordinate
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30171/5010)
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2018-12-29T05:43:33.030
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2018-12-29T06:17:41.877
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answer