Could 魚が食べる change in context? Marking 魚 with を would grammatically make 魚 the
object of the action such that it would mean "Fish are eaten"; if 魚 is marked
with が, 魚が食べる would mean "the fish eat", if I am not mistaken. However,
depending on the context of the conversation, perhaps the topic being あたし,
could 魚が食べる mean "the fish are eaten", in a such sentence as あたしは魚が食べる?Would
that thus mean あたしは魚が食べる would mean "I eat the fish"?
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2021-02-04T03:57:51.783
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question
grammar particle-が passive-voice subjects object
What exactly can が specify? I've provided 魚が食べる for sake of example
You seem to be confused about how the を particle works. 魚を食べる does not mean
"fish are eaten". It means "(some unspecified person) eats fish".

To say "fish are eaten" you would have to modify the verb to the passive form
食べられる and the object would become either the subject or the topic, but that's
a separate discussion.

You are correct that 魚が食べる means "fish eat". But your sentence あたしは魚が食べる is
pretty much meaningless. You are establishing yourself as the topic of the
conversation (あたしは) and then going on to say something completely unrelated to
you (fish eat). However, with 魚 as the object you get a perfectly reasonable
sentence あたしは魚を食べる (I eat fish).

In answer to your title question, が always marks the subject of the verb.
Sometimes, as in あたしは魚を食べる, the subject is promoted to the topic and when it
is clear from context (as it is in this case) it is omitted.

Things get more cloudy when you consider sentences like 私は魚が食べたい (I want to
eat fish). 魚 is still the subject in this sentence even though it seems like
an object in the English translation. This is just due to an inability to
translate 食べたい into natural English. You can think of it as "For me, fish are
eat inducing", and then 魚 remains the subject.

As to your final question "Could 魚が食べる change in context?", I'm not really
sure what you mean by this. Potentially yes, but I can't guess at what kind of
scenario you are imagining. You'd have to give a concrete example and I'm
afraid the one you tried to give didn't really make sense.
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answer