usage of が with できる

[ogicu8abruok6501]

with my current understanding of が and できる, the sentence
(1) 日本語ができる
means "japanese can (do something)". which of the following cases describe the cause of my misunderstanding?
(a) が has an alternate meaning/usage in certain situations, and does not always mark the subject
(b) が here has the same meaning as it does in most other common situations, but it is not perfectly analogous to my conception in english of what a "subject" is
(c) できる actually means something more like "can be done" (although not in the passive voice), and 日本語 actually is the legit subject of the sentence
(d) some unholy combination of the above and/or other

i have a similar question about the usage of が with -たい words indicating desire but i am less familiar with those.

[kunikunosaku]

At the risk of confusing both myself and everyone else I will take a shot at explaining this.

I think that the problem with understanding を and が as object markers largely arises from the way in which words are translated into English. Sometimes we end up mixing stative and dynamic verbs. を seems to be the object marker for dynamic verbs, が the object marker for transitive stative verbs.

This gets confusing with verbs like 知る which is often translated as "to know" a stative verb. But 知る takes the を particle. In this case maybe "to learn of" is more grammatically correct meaning, but it would make for some very strange English sentences.

[edit]

Sorry, I really have confused myself here. I have no idea if this relates to the たい form or not.

[end edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_grammar#Objective_ga

[ogicu8abruok6501]

thanks, i know what you mean about the mistranslations. i think this helps a little bit. maybe i will try reading your response again later when i am more advanced.

[daraconn3460]

That is a really good question. I didn't ever notice that it was odd until you asked the question and I realised I didn't know the answer.

The wikipedia link that kunikunosaku linked to says:
"For stative transitive verbs, ga instead of o is typically used to mark the object.

ジョンはフランス語が出来る。
JON wa FURANSU-go ga dekiru
John knows French. "

But it only gives that single example, which is the same one you asked about.

The example "ga wakarimasu" looks similar, but the way it was explained to me is that "wakaru" really means "be understood".

So, what are these stative transitive verbs, and are there other examples of them taking the "ga" object marker?

[Psy]

I'm a little late on the uptake here, but this is one of those situations where an upbringing in English clouds one's perspective. With the topic-subject construction, there are many expressions in Japanese that consist of stative verbs and adjectives where in English we use things that are transitive. For instance:

それが欲しい may be translated as "I want that," but "I want that" is an English expression and does not relate grammatically (although it does relate in expressing an idea.) to what was said in Japanese. The literal translation is "that is wanted." The implication is that the idea of wanting belongs to the speaker of the sentence, who in this case is the unmentioned topic: 「私は」 This accounts for many other expressions:

ドアが開いてあります ("the door is open" [somebody put it that way]")
君がいなくて寂しい ("you aren't here, is sad. [I am sad]")
何か分かりましたか ("did something become clear?" [did you figure it out?])
ビールが飲みたい ("beer is wanted to drink" [by me] note that 飲みたい functions as an adjective, not a verb. English requires "to want" as an auxiliary, but in Japanese there is no such requirement)

Remember: Translate ideas, not words! Easier said than done, I know...