Marking the object with が

[chard]

[This was originally a mail message, but I want to collect these kinds of things on my journal.]

On Monday Suzuki-sensei claimed that sometimes "が" is an object marker. Actually, I don't buy this. It seems to me much more natural to consider "が" as always the subject, but instead consider some of the verbs to be passive. For example, in "

Comments

[gareth_rees]

I have no idea how to explain 私が分かる vs 日本語が分かる, but I'm curious as to what makes you think that it's more natural to consider が to have a fixed role while the verb switches from active to passive (as opposed to the other theory whereby が has multiple uses while 分かる stays the game)?

I will look in my grammar books tonight and see if they shed any light on the matter.

[chard]

It's not that I think it's natural, but I think this is a good way for an English speaker to remember what to do when you're speaking. (Spanish too, according to my sources.)

I've yet to see an instance of "私が分かる" (meaning "I understand") but I have seen examples of "あの人が分からない" meaning "I don't understand that person". I think "私が日本語がわかる" is syntactically valid but unlikely. For "I understand myself" you'd say "自分がわかる" I think.

[gareth_rees]

Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar distinguishes several senses of ga, of which these are the relevant two:が in a potential sentence usually marks the noun phrase that would be marked by o in its non-potential counterpart.勝つゴルフが出来ない。
I can't play winning golf.
In desiderative sentence (ほしい/-たい), が marks the object of desire. Alternatively, the object of desire in these sentences can be marked by を.ほかの仕事がやりたい
I want to do a different job.

I guess this just confirms what you already know. Sorry.

[gareth_rees]

By the way, there's a small confusion in your message about what "passive" means. Just because the most natural translation of Xが分かる into English involves a passive construction does not mean that the Japanese form is passive. You could translate the same sentence into English using an active construction, for example "X makes itself understood".