today I have learned the existence of forms like 食べて欲しい (tabete hoshii), meaning wanting that someone eats something. Now I'm looking for an example sentence, but I'm struggling with the particle... I found a reddit post where someone gave these sentences:
私はアイスを食べてほしいです。 私はアイスが食べたいです。
I know that 食べたい means wanting to eat, but can someone explain why different particles are used here?
I was just reading about this on Imabi. Apparently, it’s a hangover from Classical Japanese, when it was mandatory to use が for the object of a transitive verb.
Thank you for sharing this interesting article! I didn't understand everything, but I think it's cool to have a very profound explanation available that I can come back to when I have studied more. Btw, have you heard of the zeroが particle theory? If so, what do you think about it? For me it makes everything just more confusing :D But that's okay.
I don't know who came up with it, I encountered it in this Jouzu Juls Video and a YouTuber called Cure Dolly also talked about it. He states that every Japanese sentence has a が in it, although it is sometimes hidden. The reason is that you can't have a sentence without a subject and が is the only subject marker. And in sentences without が he inserts a (⌀が), meaning basically "it", to explain what the subject is in those cases. But that doesn't make sense to me. Like 私は (⌀が) 日本人です。 = As for me, it is Japanese.
I found this Video from Japanese Ammo with Misa way more helpful, because instead of looking for one explanation that covers everything, she gives us several situations where we use は or が.
I couldn’t find anything but YouTube videos and Reddit threads either. That’s why I asked. It does sound familiar.
The idea that が is the one and only subject marker seems to be at odds with the historical record, though. Plus, a mechanism that only works for contemporary Japanese isn’t going to fly theoretically. Other languages have null subjects too.
Have you studied Japanese studies? I noticed you know a lot about etymologies of Kanji while learning them recently and now you refer to historical record, so I'm just curious ^_^
Well を is actually the marker for direct objects, but in たい sentences you usually use が to mark the thing you want to do something with. Like in アイスが食べたい - Ice cream is the thing you want to eat. As for アイスを食べて欲しい, I guess it's just the way it is. However, note that this is just a reddit post from someone I don't know. Could be wrong.
I didn't understand everything, but I think it's cool to have a very profound explanation available that I can come back to when I have studied more. Btw, have you heard of the zeroが particle theory? If so, what do you think about it? For me it makes everything just more confusing :D But that's okay.
