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It seems like the verb that uses「~て」should be affected by an adverb or an
auxiliary verb unless we have a string of「~て、~て ...」。Grammatically, for an
adjective to affect a verb should require abstracting the action to a concept
and treating the abstracted concept as an object (i.e.: 「~ることがほしい」、but that
would be wrong and awkward also). Obviously,「~たい」could also be used, but that
isn't the issue. Right? What I am trying to figure out is how this functions
on a grammatical level. As I understand it, we have a continuative verb
form（「~て」）immediately followed by an adjective. With the「~て欲しいです」construction,
we then have what converts into English grammar as, for example, "run and is
wanted" which makes no sense. Trying to process this using EN and JP, it
doesn't make any sense to me either way. Is this just some exception to the
rest of the grammatical system as a fixed construction? What is the
grammatical explanation for how this can be correct?
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question
grammar linguistics
How does「~てほしい」work grammatically?
It seems you're thinking about the て-form a bit too narrowly. It doesn't just
map onto one grammatical structure in English.

The ~てほしい construction works just as the ~てください construction does.

> 待ってください
>
> Please wait.

> 待ってほしい
>
> I want you to wait.

They're both expressing that you want/desire something from someone else. One
is a polite request; the other expresses your desire, but isn't necessarily a
request for anything.

I'm not sure if I'm reading what you're saying correctly, but it seems you
might be thinking that 待ってほしい and 待ちたい mean the same thing. This isn't at all
the case. (And, I apologize if I've misunderstood what you were trying to say
on this point.) Again, 待ってほしい means "I want you to wait". 待ちたい means "I want
to wait."

Don't just think of the て-form as expressing "[doing something] and". That's a
too narrow reading. Instead, the meaning of the て-form can't really be
resolved until you read/hear what follows.

~ることがほしい doesn't really make sense. When you use the structure ~がほしい the ~
isn't some abstraction; it's something concrete: りんごがほしい.
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answer
@A.Ellett's explanation is correct. There are various auxiliaries that are
grammatical for specific verb forms. There's a small selection of examples for
the て形 on
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation#te_form:_Auxiliary_verbs),
and there are some other auxiliary examples that are specifically compatible
with the 連用形 ("masu stem"), also on
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation#Conjunctive:_Auxiliary_verbs).

I'm not sure if it's a comprehensive list, but the DBJG lists many auxiliaries
for the て形 (p. 593, Appendix 4: "F. Vte+__") which you can learn more about
from.

* * *

**EDIT:** This answer is still correct, but I now understand the author's
confusion. Let this be clear: 欲しい (adjective) ≠ 〜て欲しい (auxiliary verb). There
is no grammatical syntax pattern that allows arbitrary i-adjectives to append
the "te-form". Rather, there is a small list of auxiliary verbs (less than 20)
that exist for attaching to the te-form. Somewhere in the history of the
language, 欲しい somehow became one of the te-form auxiliary verbs; but the
reason for this has nothing to do with the word being an adjective.

**tl;dr:** You cannot randomly attach i-adjectives to the te-form of a verb.
You can only attach one of the auxiliary verbs intended for the te-form, and I
assume there are less than 20 such verbs, one being 〜て欲しい.

* * *

**Citation:** Makino, Seiichi; Tsutsui, Michio (1989). A Dictionary of Basic
Japanese Grammar (80 ed.). Tokyo, Japan: The Japan Times., p. 593, ISBN
978-47-89004-54-1.
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answer