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In this sentence:

> 彼女はお姉さん **が** 着るのと同じ種類の服 **を** 着る。
>
> She wears the same variety of clothes as her sister wears.

Why is the が particle used to mark the sister as the subject, when the one
doing the action of wearing を着る is 彼女?

* * *

If my understanding is correct, the が particle always without exception marks
the noun (the subject) that is doing or being something:

> 犬 **が** 走る The dog is running (doing)
>
> 花 **が** 赤い The flower is red (being)

I also understand that the subject doing the action can be implied and not
included (zero pronouns).

The zero pronoun Ø takes the equivalent of "it", "I", "she", "he" etc. which
is included in English but omitted in Japanese.

The は particle is the topic and does not indicate the noun that is doing or
being (the job が already does).

> 私は (Ø **が** ) 日本人です。
>
> As for me, (I) am Japanese. (Øが means "I")

Ordering food in a restaurant:

> 彼は (Ø **が** ) 天ぷらです。
>
> As for him (it) is Tempura. (not he is a Tempura) (Øが means "it")

If I am misunderstanding this concept please correct me.

* * *

But in the first sentence above I am not confident when applying these
concepts.

> 彼女は (Øが）姉さん **が** 着るのと同じ種類の服 **を** 着る。
>
> As for her (she Ø) wears the same type of clothes her sister wears.

My questions are:

  1. Am I correct in putting (Øが) in the sentence? Does (Øが）mean 彼女が in this case? And does 彼女が indicate that she is doing the action of wearing **を** 着る?
  2. Is the second が in 姉さん **が** 着る used to indicate that her sister is doing the action of wearing her own clothes? Would this be a second が different from this first invisible が?
  3. But if 着る is a transitive verb, why is this second が used instead of を? お姉さん **を** 着るのと同じ種類の服 **Edit: disregard this question.**
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question
grammar particles particle-が relative-clauses
Why is the が particle used in this sentence?
It's not a good idea to assume there is always ～が (explicit or implicit) along
with ～は in Japanese sentences. 私は私が日本人です is plain "ungrammatical" rather than
"redundant" or "wordy". Japanese people don't interpret Japanese sentences in
that way. If your first language is English, imagining an implicit ～が may help
you better understand certain sentences like 私は天ぷらです, but that's nothing more
than that.

> Am I correct in putting (Øが) in the sentence? Does (Øが）mean 彼女が in this
> case?

If you put 彼女が in that place, the sentence would look awfully wrong. This
sentence is complete as-is.

> Is the second が in 姉さんが着る used to indicate that her sister is doing the
> action of wearing her own clothes? Would this be a second が different from
> this first invisible が?

Yes, this が after 姉さん is a plain subject marker in a relative clause. I would
say there is no such thing as "first invisible が" in the first place.

> if 着る is a transitive verb, why is this second が used instead of を?

Because が marks the subject of 着る (i.e., who wears), を marks the object of 着る
(i.e., what to wear). 姉さんを着る means "wear her sister" rather than "her sister
wears".

In case you you did not know relative clauses, please [learn them
first](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/5010). 姉さんが着るの is "ones her
sister wears". ～と同じ種類 is "the same kind as ～".
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answer
お姉さんが着るの is a noun phrase where の is been using as a pronoun. The sister is
the subject of this noun phrase and is marked with が. As in English, a
sentence in Japanese can have more than one subject. Consider:

> I like the same clothes that my sister likes.

"I" is the subject here and "the same clothes that my sister likes" is the
object. However, the object of this sentence isn't a simple noun; it's a noun
phrase which also contains a subject (my sister).

In the Japanese sentence:

> 彼女はお姉さんが着るのと同じ種類の服を着る。

I think you're overthinking the "absent subject" concept. Subjects in Japanese
are often marked with は; it's just that the element marked with は isn't always
the subject. In other words, the topic can be the same as the subject, or not.
In this case, it is.

> お姉さんが着るの

This means "the ones that (her) elder sister wears".

> お姉さんが着るのと同じ種類の服

This means "the same type of clothes that her elder sister wears" (or more
literally, "the same type of clothes as the ones that her elder sister
wears"). It could be the answer to the question 彼女はどんな服を着る？ The key here is to
understand that you have a noun phrase with another noun phrase embedded in
it. (This is a relatively complex sentence!) The clothing that 彼女 wears is the
clothing represented by this noun phrase. Compare:

> 彼女は **鮮やかな服** を着る.

The structure of this sentence is exactly the same as the original:
彼女は[NP]を着る.

I hope this makes sense!
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answer