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I came across this sentence in my textbook:

> 日本人はなぜ欧米人 **を** 野蛮人だと思ったのでしょうか。

I would expect が or perhaps a contrastive は instead of を, but I can't
understand why を is used given that in the clause 欧米人_野蛮だ野蛮人, the subject is
clearly 野蛮人.

What is going on? maybe it has something to do with the fact that the sentence
is used as a relative clause?

I found [this
Q&A](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/77907/can-%E3%82%92-be-use-
instead-of-%E3%81%8C) that also deals with を instead of が, but it focuses only
on sentences ending with adjectives, ~たい verbs and potential verbs, and it
says nothing about sentences ending with 名詞 + だ, so it does not address my
question.
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question
particles particle-を
Why is を used instead of が in the following sentence ending in 名詞+だ?
You can use が instead of を in the sentence.

  * 日本人はなぜ欧米人 **が** 野蛮人だと思ったのでしょうか

which translates literally :

  * _Why did Japanese think that Westerners were barbarians?_

whereas the sentence in the question translates literally:

  * _Why did Japanese consider Westerners as barbarians?_

So arguably the answer is that it is a matter of the writer's choice of
construction. Also the use of は is most likely to be excluded for avoiding a
consecutive は-phrase. (E.g. see [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/62145/noun%E3%82%92nounverb-
stem-expressions-
ie-%E5%9F%BA%E6%BA%96%E3%82%92%E6%B5%81%E3%82%8C-%E6%88%B8%E6%83%91%E3%81%84%E3%82%92%E8%A1%A8%E3%82%8C-etc)
for ～を～と construction.)

Alternative: generally there is a research topic called 格の交替 for which you can
find tons of papers on the web (like the one in the liked question). I guess
it is also possible to see the above two sentences is an instance of 格の交替,
which is usually considered to occur by some difference of perspectives. But I
don't really see any difference by use of が/を in the particular sentence.
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The sentence you have in mind would be parsed this way:

> 日本人はなぜ『欧米人 **が** 野蛮人だ』と思ったのでしょうか。

The と is quoting the clause 欧米人が野蛮人だ.

On the other hand...

> 日本人はなぜ欧米人 **を** 野蛮人だと思ったのでしょうか。

Here, 欧米人 is the object of 思った. The structure is 「XXをYY(だ)と思う」"think of XX as
YY", not 「欧米人を野蛮人だ」と思う.

「XXをYYと思う」 can be used this way:

> 子猫 **を** かわいい **と** 思う  
>  自分 **を** 特別だ **と** 思う  
>  山田君 **を** 正直者(だ) **と** 思う

This structure can also be used with verbs 考える, みなす, etc:

> 努力 **を** ムダ(だ) **と** 考える  
>  同性間の結婚 **を** 合法 **と** みなす
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