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I was reading over this
[article](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10011483941000/k10011483941000.html)
about Midsummer Day of the Ox and selling eel. I'm wondering about the use of
が in this sentence

> この会社は今年、牛肉のステーキや、ビタミン **が** 多いしじみなども売ることにしました

Roughly: This year the company decided on selling things like beef steak, also
many items like basket clams with added vitamins

Why is the が not a で? A part of me reads this as: Vitamins have many basket
clams. Which definitely does not make sense
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2018-06-25T14:46:54.640
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2018-06-26T22:23:33.670
2018-06-25T14:51:19.020
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question
particle-が relative-clauses
Use of が in article about Midsummer Day of the Ox and selling eel
> ビタミンが多いしじみなども売ることにしました

が makes what is before be directly related to the verb/adjective. If it is a
verb, then it tells us that what is before the particle is the performer of
the action, if it is an adjective, then it tells us that it will be what is
being qualified by the adjective. Example:

> 私が書いた手紙 : A letter that I wrote
>
> 女が好きな男 : A guy who likes girls

In your sentence, replacing が by で would change the sentence's meaning:

> ビタミンで多いしじみなども売ることにしました

In this sentence, ビタミン could be seen as a **cause/reason** (unlikely) and that
would make the sentence mean something like " _because of the vitamins, we
decided to..._ ". It could be seen as a **with (method)** (unlikely) which
would make the sentence mean " _We decided to sell 多いしじみ etc. too, with
vitamins_ ". It could be seen as the **連用形 of だ** (very unlikely) which would
make the sentence mean "It is vitamins, and we decided to sell 多いしじみ as well".

None of these でs would make sense in this sentence.

In my opinion, here, で and が cannot mean the same thing, but it is kind of
ambiguous because of 多い which is an adjective and not a verb. If it had a verb
with it like in the phrase below:

> ビタミンで満ちたしじみ

I feel like it would be "more grammatically correct". And even if it was
correct to use で with an adjective in this kind of sentence pattern, the fact
that で can mean so many different things would make it too ambiguous for
people to choose で over が.
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2018-06-26T05:19:59.370
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* しじみを売る
  * しじみがビタミンが多い

When you synthesize these sentences, you get ビタミンが多いしじみを売る.
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answer
> ビタミンが多いしじみ

The problem is that you are not correctly parsing this phrase.

> × _many items like basket clams with added vitamins_  
>  × _vitamins have many basket clams_  
>  ○ **_vitamin-rich basket clams_**

Why is that?

  1. **多い does not substitute "many"**  
It's often said Japanese 多い means "many", but it's not true grammar-wise. The
correct statement is 「Xが多い」 = "there are many X", that means 多い's lexical
meaning, if I'm forced to put it in English, is "a large amount of X exists".
And vice versa for 少ない.

  2. **多い cannot modify しじみ alone**  
Due to the aforementioned semantic feature, 多い is not able to move before the
noun, as [Japanese adjective attribution is actually forming relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1016/7810). Consider, how could
you form a relative clause headed by "people" from "a large amount of people
exists"? For this reason, 多いX which is transformed from Xが多い is almost
nonsense. Even when you apparently see such construction, it's usually some
implicit subject (nominative) hidden.

> 多い時期は1日1000人 = ( **観光客が** )多い時期は1日1000人 _1000 people a day during the season
> when there are many ( **visitors** ) [= high season]_
>
> 多い日も安心 = ( **経血が** )多い日も安心 _no worry even on a day where there are much (
> **flow** )_ [sanitary pad ad cliche]

The situation is quite contrastive to English _many_ , which cannot stand as
predicate i.e. "many people" → *"the people are many".

  3. **ビタミンが多い modifies しじみ**  
Thus you can only interpret the clause ビタミンが多い ("there is much vitamin" or
"vitamin is abundant") modifying しじみ. [Japanese relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/7810) allows any kind of
relations between the head noun and the clause, thus you can understand it
virtually as "basket clams in which vitamin is abundant".

More grammatically correctly, the original sentence before relativization was
a [topic-comment structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-
prominent_language) that accepts a complete sentence in the place where
English grammar only expect a predicate. This type of construction typically
describes such content you use possessive expressions to convey in English.

> しじみはビタミンが多い  
>  _As for basket clams, there is much vitamin_ or _basket clams have much
> vitamin_
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2018-06-26T13:50:29.760
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