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I've been studying Japanese for quite a while and I've realised lately that I
didn't understand what the concept of the subject was in Japanese and even
English too. As a native speaker of English I found this quite surprising but
then again I don't remember much about my English lessons in school as it was
a long time ago.

So I decided to search online first for what the subject is in English and I
found a good definition which was:

> A subject is the noun, pronoun or set of words that performs the verb.

And then I found the definition of what the subject marker が does:

> "が" is the subject marker and marks a noun that performs an action

Are these the definitions of the subject in English and Japanese? And if so,
is it correct to say that the meaning of the subject is the same in both
languages?

Also in this phrase

> 魚が好きな人。
>
> Person who likes fish.

The fish (魚) is the subject here which is performing the action "to like"
(even though "to like" (好き) is an adjective in Japanese)

Is my understanding of this correct? Is it okay to use this idea when forming
sentences/understanding them:

> Person who likes Japanese, does not like English.
>
> People who like Japanese language don't like English language.
>
> 日本語が好きな人は英語が好きじゃない。

Here, 日本語 and 英語 are both subjects performing the action "to like" ? Can a
sentence have more than one subject like above or is my thinking incorrect?

Despite the strange meanings you may interpret, the grammar is correct is it
not?

**If the sentences are strange or nonsensical, can you please explain to me
why? I really want to understand.**
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25667
2017-08-22T01:38:10.690
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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question
subjects
What exactly is the subject?
## What is a subject?

There's more than one theory of grammar, whether we're talking about English
or Japanese, and you may find that the term _subject_ has been defined
multiple ways.

But some definitions are more adequate than others. How can we define
_subject_ in a useful way?

Let's start by looking at English, then move on to Japanese, and see we can
find any useful parallels between these two very different languages.

* * *

## Subjects in English

The definition you quoted is woefully inadequate. You wrote that a "subject is
the noun, pronoun or set of words that performs the verb". But a verb is not
an action that can be performed, it is a word that may or may not represent an
action; and importantly, the subject does not always represent an entity that
performs an action of any kind:

> ​1. **It** 's raining.

Here, the subject is _it_. This is what's called a **dummy subject** ; in
English, a grammatical subject is required in a (non-imperative) finite main
clause. Since _rain_ doesn't have a semantic subject, we have to insert the
meaningless ("dummy") subject _it_.

This is called for any time we'd be left without a subject, for example in
extraposition (example from _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_ ):

> ​2a. **[That it's a forgery]** is clear.  
>  ​2b. * **＿＿** is clear [that it's a forgery].  
>  ​2c. **It** is clear [that it's a forgery].

In example 2a, we have a canonical sentence with the subordinate clause _that
it's a forgery_ in a subject position. Note that this subject doesn't
represent an entity, is clearly not performing an action of any kind, and the
verb _is_ doesn't represent an action.

This sort of sentence is usually extraposed, which means moving the
subordinate clause out of subject position to the end of the sentence, as in
example 2b. But that's ungrammatical because it leaves us without a subject,
so we have to insert the meaningless (dummy) _it_ , as in example 3b.

English has very clear grammatical rules for subjects, and this is one of
them. But this is a **purely grammatical** rule. Even though the subordinate
clause _that it's a forgery_ has basically the same semantic role in both 2a
and 2c, it's only a grammatical subject in 2a.

And extraposition isn't just an unusual exception where the semantic
definition fails. There are _lots_ of sentences used every day where it
doesn't work. For example, almost every passive sentence:

> ​3. **The patient** was murdered by his own doctor!

Here the subject represents an entity, but it isn't performing an action. _His
own doctor_ represents the agent in this sentence, but it's the object of the
preposition _by_ ; grammatically speaking, it's not a subject.

**We can't define a grammatical subject in semantic terms.** It just doesn't
work. What we _can_ do is talk about what semantics a subject _tends to_ or
_often_ has. If you'd like to say that subjects often represent entities which
perform actions represented by verbs, I wouldn't argue. It's definitely true
that we can find relationships between semantics and grammar; neither exists
in a vacuum.

But the semantic definition is flat-out wrong as a definition of "subject".
You can't come up with any semantic definition that all subjects satisfy.
Instead, what we find are a number of grammatical attributes that a certain
kind of constituent satisfies. And once we've identified those attributes in
purely grammatical terms, we turn to semantics to figure out what to call it.
We find that this kind of constituent **typically represents the experiencer
or agent** in an active clause; and because that's true, we label this kind of
constituent "subject".

But we have to come up with this sort of description on a language-particular
basis. Although we can say that a subject in English is the constituent whose
basic position is before the verb, which the verb agrees with in number and
person, in which non-coordinate pronouns appear in nominative rather than
accusative form ( _I_ rather than _me_ ), and so on, **none of these rules
apply to Japanese**.

But what we _can_ learn from this discussion of English is that each language
has grammatical rules, and that it doesn't make sense to define grammatical
functions purely in terms of semantics.

* * *

## Subjects in Japanese

Again, the definition you've found is inadequate. Although が generally marks a
subject, it's not true that all (or even most) subjects are marked with が. Nor
is it true that a が-marked noun phrase represents an entity which performs an
action; and predicates that take が-marked noun phrases as arguments don't
necessarily represent actions. In fact, this sort of semantic definition fails
in many of the same ways it fails in English, for example in passives.

First, let's look at the が-の alternation. In subordinate clauses, の often
replaces が:

> ​4a. 太郎 **が** 買った本 _'the book Tarō bought'_  
>  ​4b. 太郎 **の** 買った本 _'the book Tarō bought'_

In both 4a and 4b, 太郎 is the subject of 買った, but it's been marked with two
different particles! If you define "subject" as "marked by が", 太郎 _can't_ be
the subject in 4b. But since 太郎 has the other grammatical and semantic
properties associated with a subject, that's an undesirable conclusion. To
solve this problem, we'll want to introduce another layer of abstraction,
separating grammatical case from grammatical function.

Particles like が and の are traditionally referred to as **case particles**
(格助詞). The particle が is called a nominative case particle, and when you mark
a noun phrase with が, we can say the noun phrase bears nominative case. We're
going to be using a few more labels for cases below, so I'll lay them out
here:

  * が - **nominative** case particle
  * を - **accusative** case particle
  * の - **genitive** case particle 

So what are these weird labels? Why do we call が "nominative"? Well, that's
the traditional label for a case whose main purpose is marking a subject. But
note that I wrote **main** purpose. I didn't say **only** purpose! Not all
nominative noun phrases in Japanese are subjects, and not all subjects in
Japanese are marked nominatively.

In fact, most aren't. On a main clause subject, the nominative case particle が
is generally replaced with は unless the speaker has a specific reason to use が
(e.g. the "exhaustive listing" implicature). And in familiar speech, the
nominative case particle is often dropped entirely, with no particle in its
place!

So with that in mind, let's take another look at our examples:

> ​4a. 太郎 **が** 買った本 _'the book Tarō bought'_  
>  ​4b. 太郎 **の** 買った本 _'the book Tarō bought'_

In 4a, we can say we have a **nominative subject** , that is, a subject marked
by が. In 4b, we can say we have a **genitive subject** , that is, a subject
marked by の. That allows us to say that they're both subjects, even though
only one has が.

But why? What do we gain by abstracting "nominative case" from "subject
function"? In order for this to make sense, we need to be able to identify
grammatical and semantic characteristics that subjects have in Japanese, and
so far, the only one we've really talked about is being marked by が!

In chapter six of [_The Oxford Handbook of Japanese
Linguistics_](https://books.google.com/books?id=4CS07LRO8O8C&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142#v=onepage&q&f=false),
Masatoshi Koizumi lays out some of the grammatical characteristics subjects
and objects have, showing why we need to separate grammatical case
(nominative, accusative) from grammatical function (subject, object). I'll
borrow the following examples from Professor Koizumi:

  * Subjects undergo subject honorification, while objects do not:
```      5a. 　千草先生 **が**　学生たち **を**　お呼びになった。  
     5b. ＃学生たち **が**　千草先生 **を**　お呼びになった。
```

In example 5a, the subject 千草先生 triggers subject honorification, replacing the
simple verb form 呼んだ with the honorific construction お呼びになった. But sentence 5b
doesn't work; 千草先生 can only trigger this sort of honorification in subject
position.

Now let's try the same thing with transitive adjective 好き(だ):

```      6a. 　千草先生 **が**　学生たち **が**　お好きだ。  
     6b. ＃学生たち **が**　千草先生 **が**　お好きだ。
```

Even though this is a non-canonical sentence where both arguments are marked
with が, instead of one being marked with が and the other を, we find the same
thing. It's as though the second が-marked constituent is behaving like an
object, not a subject; for this reason, Koizumi refers to it as a **nominative
object**.

  * The reflexive 自分 binds to subjects, but not to objects:
```      7. 正美 **が**　裕美 **が**　自分のクラスで　一番好きだ。

```

Although there are two noun phrases marked with が, the reflexive 自分 refers
back to the subject 正美, not to the nominative object 裕美.

  * Subjects cannot be marked with の plus the formal noun こと:
```      8a. 　ジョン **が**　マリー **を**　騙した。　_'John deceived Mary.'_

```

We can add 〜のこと to the object マリー, but not the subject ジョン:

```      8b. 　ジョン **が**　マリー **のことを**　騙した。  
     8c. ＊ジョン **のことが**　マリー **を**　騙した。
```

Now let's try that again with the non-canonical predicator 好き(だ), whose second
object is (traditionally) marked with が rather than を:

```      9a. 　ジョン **が**　マリー **が**　好きだ。

```

We find the same thing:

```      9b. 　ジョン **が**　マリー **のことが**　好きだ。  
     9c. ＊ジョン **のことが**　マリー **が**　好きだ。
```

The second argument here is marked with が, but it doesn't have the grammatical
or semantic traits a subject typically has. It's not a subject; it's a
nominative object.

The chapter provides further examples which you may be interested in reading,
but I'll stop there. I think this is sufficient to demonstrate that we can
abstract grammatical case from grammatical function.

* * *

So what is a subject in Japanese?

  * It is the constituent which _typically_ represents the experiencer or agent in an active clause, or the theme or patient in a passive clause.
  * It is the constituent reflexive 自分 typically binds to.
  * It is the constituent which triggers subject honorification.
  * Its basic position is near the beginning of the clause, typically before the object if one is present. It can be moved out of this position, as Japanese word order is flexible, but this increases processing time.
  * Its basic case marking is nominative (with が), though it very often appears without nominative marking, sometimes with another case particle instead (such as の or に, depending on the construction).

But unlike English:

  * It can be readily omitted even from main clauses, as long as it's not focused and can be understood from context, particularly in familiar speech.
  * It does not trigger subject-verb agreement.
  * Its position is not nearly as rigid in the sentence.
  * A different set of syntactic processes affect the subject; there is no subject-auxiliary inversion in main clause interrogatives, no extraposition of non-finite clauses as subjects, and so on.

So I'm afraid it's not as simple as "something marked with が is a subject",
nor is it as simple as "the subject is the doer of the verb". You'll find
definitions like these used quite often, but they're not really adequate; to
come up with an accurate description, you'll have to dig a bit deeper.

* * *

In this answer:  
* or ＊ marks a sentence as ungrammatical.  
# or ＃ marks a sentence as semantically anomalous.
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2017-08-22T01:38:10.690
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answer