Tuesday, May 2, 2017

grammar - Use of が vs を with transitive verb, 受け入れる(+もらえる)


This is probably fairly basic but, not being a native speaker, I'd like to confirm if my understanding of grammar of the following sentence (from 中上級日本語, Feb'14) is correct and what is natural.


In the following sentence I would have expected the subject to be the speaker and the object of the transitive verb 受け入れる (to requite), to be their feelings (気持ち), however their feelings take が and are therefore the subject:



失恋:私の気持ちが相手に受け入れてもらえないこと。




Is this possibly because もらう is in potential form (?) or is it possibly because the sentence is nominalised by こと (?) what is the norm here and when would を be appropriate?


Notes:
1) "An Introduction to Adv Jse Spoken Jse" tells us that for expressions of desire,mentioned in the comments, for the ~たい construction が is "normative" but "を" is also used in actual conversation.
2) Makino's Dictionary of Basic Jse Grammar tells us that for ~たい form of transitive verbs either is fine but が is preferred if the degree of desire is high (perhaps a similar principle applies here?).



Answer



There are probably people that teach that が can only mark subjects. I don't like that theory, since it makes it really hard to explain some other things.


So I will proceed under the assumption that が can also mark objects of stative verbs (adjectives like 好き, verbs like 分かる, the ~たい form and the ~える・れる potential form etc). In fact, it seems that が and を are in competition in these positions.



りんごを食べたい - りんごが食べたい




I personally prefer the が version, but it seems that many speakers (mainly younger ones) like the を version.


In the given example, I personally like を better, and I think it's because 気持ち is not really the object of the stative verb もらえる, but of 受け入れて (i.e. 気持ち attaches to 受け入れて before the whole thing attaches to もらえる).



[気持ちを受け入れて]もらえる



But I suspect that for some, the power of the potential form is so strong that it forces the が. Or maybe they parse it thus:



気持ちが[受け入れてもらえる]




Sorry for the vague answer. But in many cases, different native speakers will use particles in slightly different ways.


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