70664
I know there are already a few questions about this topic on this website,
however none of them seemed to really help me with the issue.

The ~てほしい contruction is used to express that someone wants someone/something
else to do something. Now, my problem is with the particle that is used to
mark the person/thing that is supposed to carry out the desired action: Should
it be が or に, or can it be both?

In most examples I saw, に was used. For example:

> あなたに幸せになってほしい。

But occasionally, there were also examples with が. So I tried to think about a
solution, and I came up with the idea that maybe が was only used to avoid
misunderstandings, such as in the following example provided by Toshihiko in
the answer to the question [てほしい particle
usage](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/29223/%e3%81%a6%e3%81%bb%e3%81%97%e3%81%84-particle-
usage):

> 私はあなたが彼に英語を教えてほしい。  
>  I want you to teach him English.

But then I found another example sentence:

> 冬が早く来て欲しい。  
>  I want winter to come soon.

Here, the が doesn't seem to be used to avoid any misunderstandings because the
sentence is simple enough as it is.

So after all, what determines if you should use が or に to mark the person or
thing that should carry out the action when using the ~てほしい construction?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-07T17:17:21.647
70630
2019-09-20T07:00:48.423
33212
question
grammar particle-に particle-が
に vs. が in the ~てほしい construction
が is emphasizing the noun before it than に.

あなたに幸せになってほしい  
I want you to be happy.

あなたが幸せになってほしい  
I want **YOU** to be happy. It's not common and must be some important meaning
on 'you'. More like dialogue in a movie.

Although I feel your second example is simply wrong. In this case we should
use に. Even it has to be "you" who teach him English.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-09T08:37:28.300
70664
2019-09-09T08:37:28.300
35310
70630
answer
> あなたに幸せになってほしい。

This sentence implies encouraging the listener when the speaker will help the
partner need to be happy.

In a similar way, next sentence is also kind of encouragement.

> 私はあなた **が** 彼に英語を教えてほしい。 I request/ask **you** to teach English.

This is the mix of emphatic "が" to specify the person and requesting/asking
them to.

While,

> 冬が早く来て欲しい。I expect/look forward winter to coming soon.

This is not simply a request, but you are hoping something to happen.
〜が...て欲しい does not supply a particular instruction though, it could be a
request in a roundabout way. In this case, the winter does not listen to your
request. So, 冬に早く来て欲しい is strange.

> ex) 電気が早く通ってほしい。

Whether the electricity will immediately run during blackout/power outage is
not really under your control. Saying so might indirectly be telling local
governments/electric power companies to react on soon though.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-16T07:19:44.200
71835
2019-09-16T07:19:44.200
34735
70630
answer
## Kimi Tanaka's answer

First I want to cite Kimi Tanaka's answer and he/she says that:

> > 冬が早く来て欲しい
>
> This is not simply a request, but you are hoping something to happen.
> 〜が...て欲しい does not supply a particular instruction though, it could be a
> request in a roundabout way. In this case, the winter does not listen to
> your request. So, 冬に早く来て欲しい is strange.

I agree to this explanation.

For general, `XがYする` means X does Y for X's own demand. And `ZがXにYをさせる` means
Z makes X to do Y **for Z's demand**.

So like

> 冬が来る。 ("Winter comes.")

sounds natural while

> 冬に早く来て欲しい。

is strange because the winter comes no matter if you wish it to come earlier.

## ゆるキャン's answer

ゆるキャン showed a good point and I agree to it.

## Summary

I don't have no reference but I think:

  1. `が` has emphasizing effect, but can easily be strange if you mention to things you can't control / ask to do something
  2. `には` has almost same effect of `に`. In some cases `には` is effective to emphasize what you mention to.

Some examples here.

> あなたに幸せになってほしい。 (Sounds natural)
>
> あなたが幸せになってほしい。 (Sounds a bit strange but not invalid. It sounds like it
> emphasizes あなた)
>
> あなたには幸せになってほしい。(Sounds way natural, and the speaker is not hoping another
> person's happiness but yours. Better emphasis than `が`.)
>
> 彼にこの仕事をやってほしい (Natural. It means "I want him to do this job")
>
> 彼がこの仕事をやってほしい (Sounds wrong / invalid)
>
> 彼にはこの仕事をやってほしい (Natural, almost equivalent to `に` version)
>
> あの犬に元気になってほしい (Natural. It means "I hope that dog gets better.")
>
> あの犬が元気になってほしい (Very strange, almost invalid)
>
> あの犬には元気になってほしい (Natural, and perhaps **more** natural than `に` version)

`あなたに彼に英語を教えてほしい` has another object `彼に` in it and it causes difference to
`が`, `に`, `には` usages.

> あなたに彼に英語を教えてほしい (A bit strange, it's because the same postpositional
> particle `に` occurs multiple times. It should be avoided.)
>
> あなたが彼に英語を教えてほしい (Natural. There may be other people who can teach English
> but the speaker wishes YOU to teach him English.)
>
> あなたには彼に英語を教えてほしい (Natural. The speaker assigns you to teach him English.
> It's unclear that there are more people who can teach English.)

`に` and `には` has similar usage so they can be used to avoid the same
postpositional particle to appear multiple times in one sentence.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-20T07:00:48.423
71938
2019-09-20T07:00:48.423
5353
70630
answer