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According to [this answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/15516/119),
"This made me laugh" would translate literally into Japanese as:

> これが僕{ぼく}を笑{わら}わせた。

However, the same answer explains that this would be an odd thing to say in
Japanese, because the Japanese language tends to avoid using an "inanimate
subject".

As far as I know, in English we don't have any preference for whether or not a
subject is animate or inanimate, though I could be wrong about that. I don't
know _how_ English works, I just think with it, and maybe I make unconscious
habitual choices.

In any case, I have no conceptual model for this inanimate/animate subject
distinction, and, as far as I can remember in all my years of studying
Japanese, this is the first time it's ever come up for me.

_How_ strange is a statement like `これが僕{ぼく}を笑{わら}わせた`? Are there examples
where the animate/inanimate distinction would lead to unparsable statements,
or is it just mildly awkward sounding?

"This made me laugh" in English is a perfectly acceptable statement, but are
there parallels in English to the Japanese distinction between animate and
inanimate subjects that would help me conceptualize what is happening in
Japanese?
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question
grammar
How can I come to terms with the animate/inanimate distinction in Japanese?
My understanding is that it's a matter of intent. In English, you'd never say
"The car went to work" because cars can't _do_ things. People may make the car
do things, but the person was the intent behind the action.

Japanese expands this concept so that "this thing made me laugh" is weird
since _things_ largely have no intent. Perhaps "this thing is amusing" since
that holds no intent or perhaps "the fates amuse me (with this thing)".
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answer
Disclaimer: I'm nowhere near being good enough at Japanese to answer questions
on this site but since you asked, here we go:

I think the animate/inanimate distinction is only a particular case. The
general distinction is based on viewpoints. _From A Dictionary of Basic
Japanese Grammar_ (DBJG):

> "The speaker usually describes a situation or an event from his own
> viewpoint rather than from others' when he is involved in the situation or
> the event."
>
> "It's easier for the speaker to take the viewpoint of a person in the
> sentence subject position than to take the viewpoint of a person in other
> positions."

The way I see it, the speaker chooses the viewpoint for his sentence in this
order of preference (going from what's closest to him to what's the furthest
away): himself, someone from his group (family, school, colleagues...), the
hearer, a third person who isn't from his group, something.

This has multiple consequences :

**1: The 1st person subject can easily be left out (as it's the default
viewpoint).**

**2: Some verbs (あげる、くれる、もらう) _DEFINE_ the viewpoint of the sentence (of the
giver, receiver and receiver respectively):**

This makes a sentence like *私が田中さんに本をくれた ungrammatical because of a conflict
of viewpoint (choosing the viewpoint of the receiver (くれる) while the speaker
is the giver. In order to make the viewpoint coincide, あげる should be used).

This is also why くれる isn't used when the speaker and the hearer are neither
the giver nor the receiver. The speaker then tends to take the viewpoint of
the subject with either あげる or もらう.

This is also true of auxiliaries like いく and くる:

> 私はどろぼうにおそいかかっていった/*きた.

くる expresses the idea of going towards the speaker's viewpoint.

**3: The speaker tends to take the viewpoint of human beings rather than the
viewpoint of inanimate things (which are at the end of the list).**

**4: Some passive sentence feels unnatural (from DBJG):**

> (私の)息子は私に叱られた。  
>  The viewpoint should be the one of the speaker, but there the subject is
> his son.

**5 The speaker can't express others' feelings with adjectives like 悲しい which
express the sadness of the speaker.**

He has to use verbs like 悲しがる or 悲しむ "to look sad", or basically any
construction that tends to describe the scene from his viewpoint:

> 彼女は悲しそうだ She looks sad.  
>  彼女は悲しいということだ I heard that she is sad.

And so on.
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answer
I agree with Alox that it has to do with viewpoint. I tried to write an answer
yesterday, but it quickly became too long, so I didn't post it. I'm trying to
make it shorter this time. Some information are already covered by Alox's
answer, so I would repeat it again.

* * *

In conclusion, in some situations, both Japanese and English tend to avoid
choosing human as the subject. But Japanese tends to use passive while English
tends to use causative.

* * *

Japanese tends to take the viewpoint of human beings. I think it's also true
form other languages. It just that different languages use different ways to
express it.

笑う is a kind of unintentional emotional activity. In Japanese, there are
several patterns that are used to express such kind of things.

  1. [something]が [someone]に [action]される (maybe more literally: that something is done happens to somebody)

This applies to many verbs, but mainly verbs expressing emotions

```     成功が待たれる

    対応が急がれる
    挙動が不審に思える
    
```

  2. [something]が [someone]には [action]しい
```     結論は疑わしい

    
```

  3. [someone]が [reason]に [action]する

This applies to a limited number of verb, include 笑う, 驚く, etc.

```     アメリカの軍事力には驚いた

    これには笑った
    
```

  4. [someone]が[something]を [action]させられる

This generally works for all verbs

```     彼の話には笑わされた

    私は、この『○○』を読んで、考えさせられた
    
```

  5. [something]が[action]させられる
```     その映画は考えさせられる

    
```

  6. [something]を[action]させる[something]
```     (読者に)深く考えさせる作品

    
```

  7. [something]を[action]させられる[something]
```     深く考えさせられる作品

    
```

  8. [something]が[potential verb]
```     笑える話

    泣ける映画
    
```

I'm not good at English, but I also noticed several patterns, which can't be
literally translated into Chinese (and Japanese).

It seems that, English tends to say

  1. [something] makes [somebody] [do]
```     it makes me think/laugh...

    
```

  2. [something] [affects] [somebody]
```     it reminds me

    
```

  3. [somebody] is [affected by] [something]
```     I'm amused

    
```

  4. [something] is [affect]-ing
```     It's interesting

    
```

  5. [something] is [do]-able
```     It's questionable

    
```

  6. [something] [does] [somebody]
```     it sounds good

    
```

It becomes clear that, Japanese tends to use passive while English tends to
use causative.

I think it's not because of the animate/inanimate distinction, just that
Japanese tends to say [for some reason] [something] [is changed] while English
tends to say [some reason makes something to change]

```

    風で窓が開いた
    
```

I think most people here don't read Chinese, so I won't write much about
Chinese.

Chinese is a little similar to English. In Chinese, we tend to say
`[something] makes me [do]`. But we don't use dummy subject. So we will not
say something like "it makes laugh", instead, we say "I laugh".

There are also some 可～s in Classical Chinese, e.g. 可笑, 可嘆, etc.

* * *

大曽 美恵子（2001）『[感情を表わす動詞・形容詞に関する一考察](http://hdl.handle.net/2237/8042)』

いい論文を見つけました。ぜひ読んで頂きたいと思います。

興味深いことに、Chocolateさんが、無生物を主語とする使役文が好まれないため、あまり使わない(normally you don't say it
this way in Japanese, because the Japanese language tends to avoid using
無生物主語(inanimate subject) , especially in verbal/casual communication.
)と判断された「物が人を～させる」構文は、この論文によると、まったく問題ない文になります。
なお大曽は、「通常、日本語の使役文の主体は[…]有生物であって、無生物を主語とする使役文[…]は成り立たない」「無生物を主体として取る感情動詞の使役文は日本語では特殊であると言える」などと述べています。

```

    あのドラマは大人を楽しませてくれた
    音楽は人を楽しませる
    酒は今日も私を悲しくさせる
    
```

などなど

私は、修飾語に使われている「[something]を[action]させる[something]」の文型として、「深く考えさせる作品」の例を挙げましたが、「[something]が[somebody]に[action]させる」ような文型については書いていません。少なくとも、「られる」のほうが普通かなと思っています。

また、大曽は、「ヲ格をとる感情動詞が[…]使役受身文にならない[…]」とし、次の例を挙げています。

```

     （５７）＊父は兄の出世に喜ばされた。（←兄の出世は父を喜ばせた。）
     （５８）＊大人はあのドラマに楽しまされた。
    
```

感情動詞でない場合なら、私は、「考えさせられた」の例を挙げているので、問題ないと思います。

ご参考までに
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