# ゆっくり食べたほうが健康にいい



## Theternitend

I've already stumbled twice upon a grammatical structure in Japanese that I have a quite hard time understanding.
The sentence in question is this:

Moderator: The other question is in the original thread.

(2) ゆっくり食べた方が健康にいいよ

Here what precedes the "が" particle acts as the subject of the stative verb (or -i adjective).

*So to sum it up, what I'm wondering is what is the syntactic function of the "が" clause in sentence (1). I've been looking for a lot of examples of the verb 満足します and so far as I'm concerned it's not possible for the "が" clause to be its subject, but then, what is it?*

I would really really appreciate your help. I cannot sleep till I know how this works!


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## frequency

> (2) ゆっくり食べた方が健康にいいよ
> Here what precedes the "が" particle acts as the subject of the stative verb (or -i adjective).


Good. I think so, too.



> *So to sum it up, what I'm wondering is what is the syntactic function of the "が" clause in sentence (1). I've been looking for a lot of examples of the verb 満足します and so far as I'm concerned it's not possible for the "が" clause to be its subject, but then, what is it?*


Well, not really.
が isn't difficult very much: a subject marker.
は is a topic marker. In (1), you're saying _For/to me, As for me, Regarding me_. Don't say 私が満足します。

See (2) is simple like A = B, but in (1), I see, _in this case_, both 私 and 飲んでお腹に溜まるより、食べた感があった方 somewhat work for the verb 満足します・・so I don't think the use of が with 私 is good very much. But don't apply this rule to all cases you come across because the use of が・はvaries in a complicated way.


If you think that you're unlikely to sleep tonight, too, search "subject marker and topic marker Japanese" on Google. Or is it better to start a new thread?
Come back and post us back anytime.


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## Theternitend

frequency said:


> Good. "。。。より 。。。方が” is almost a set phrase. The fragment or noun led by 方 + が indicates the thing that satisfies the speaker (subject).
> Notice that 飲んでお腹に溜まる and 食べた感があった are clauses. Compare: 犬より猫の方が私は満足します。



First of all thank you very much for your help  It's greatly appreciated.

Then would it be grammatical to say something like "猫が私わ満足します.", whithout any kind of comparison? If so, I think that means that the verb 満足します cannot be regarded as an intransitive verb, but rather as a transitive verb with some kind of fossilized direct object from 満足をします, which would make perfect sense at least in my mind


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## DaylightDelight

Please see my post in the other thread.
満足します here is a variation of 満足です, which makes this sentence a 形容詞文 (adjective sentence)
in which an adjective instead of a verb functions as the predicate.

猫が私は満足します does not make sense. 
It must be 猫の方が私は満足します, which is a form of comparison (猫 is compared with implied something)


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## Theternitend

DaylightDelight said:


> Please see my post in the other thread.
> 満足します here is a variation of 満足です, which makes this sentence a 形容詞文 (adjective sentence)
> in which an adjective instead of a verb functions as the predicate.
> 
> 猫が私は満足します does not make sense.
> It must be 猫の方が私は満足します, which is a form of comparison (猫 is compared with implied something)



My indo-european mind is not able to comprehend why it is possible to say "Cats satisfy me more (than dogs)" but it makes no sense to simply say "Cats satisfy me", with the same structure except for the comparison (の方) 

Are there other "verbs" like that (or whatever they are called, I don't even now already x) ) you could think of that require the が clause to be in a comparative structure?

My apologies for being so insistent, but I appreciate your help a lot.


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## DaylightDelight

Theternitend said:


> Are there other "verbs" like that (or whatever they are called, I don't even now already x) ) you could think of that require the が clause to be in a comparative structure?


Thinking it over, I came to think this sentence is somewhat broken/incorrect in the first place.
Properly speaking, the verb 満足します never takes a が clause.
We could say 猫*に*私は満足します or 猫*で*私は満足します but we can't say 猫*が*私は満足します.

猫の方が私は満足します is not grammatical for the same reason.
It just sounds a bit less unnatural, maybe because of an implied
set phrase "xxよりxxの方が" which intrinsically contains a "が".

So your original sentence must be incorrect, too.
Still, 飲んでお腹に溜まるより、食べた感があった方が私は満足します does not sound at all strange to me,
and I just can't see why
If I remove the comparison and make it 食べた感があったのが私は満足します, it sounds quite wrong,
in the same way as 猫が私は満足します.
If it is 飲んでお腹に溜まるより、食べた感があった方*で*私は満足します, then it makes perfect sense,
and is grammatically correct, in the same way as 猫で私は満足します.

Perhaps I'm mentally treating the "xxよりxxの方が" clause as a separate phrase to qualify
"私は満足します" part as a whole. In that case, が here does not have a function in the sentence,
but is an integral part of the comparison clause.


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## Theternitend

DaylightDelight said:


> ...


Wow, this is really interesting.
The で particle introduces adverbials into the sentence (apparently "causes" in these examples -the cause of me being satisfied-).
Maybe the most correct grammatical form has always been "飲んでお腹に溜まるより、食べた感があった方*で*私は満足します", but since the "。。。より 。。。方が" structure is so fixed in the language, it can perform other syntactical roles (an adverbial function in this case) that normally wouldn't belong to a が clause. Does that make sense for you?

Anyway I must say that I've run into this kind of sentence in supposedly very well written texts, such as books and anime/film dialogues. Therefore it's not likely to be wrong. Also well, to the ears of a native speaker like you it sounds nice, doesn't it?


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## DaylightDelight

Theternitend said:


> but since the "。。。より 。。。方が" structure is so fixed in the language, it can perform other syntactical roles that normally wouldn't belong to a が clause.


Yes, I'm beginning to suspect something like that is the case here.


Theternitend said:


> Also well, to the ears of a native speaker like you it sounds nice, doesn't it?


Yes, it does sound very natural to me, while seeming to be somewhat ungrammatical at the same time.
Well, happens often enough with spoken languages, I guess.


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## frequency

Theternitend said:


> that require the が clause to be in a comparative structure?


Good. That's all.
飲んでお腹に溜まるより、食べた感があった方が私は満足します。 is much more natural.
Moreover, as you said before, "・・より・・方が" is a fixed expression just like "template".


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