# who/whom - relative clause



## Nino83

Hello everybody.

How is the difference between the subject (who) and the object (whom) of a relative clause marked in Japanese?
Does it depend on the presence of a subject in the relative clause?

The person who plays guitar arrived. ギターを弾く*人*は着いた
The person (whom) I saw is coming. 私*が*見た*人*は着いている 

Does it work like this? 

Thank you


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## wind-sky-wind

Basically, there's no relative pronoun in Japanese.

The relative pronoun (objective) "whom" is followed by the subject in the relative clause, and you can or should translate it.

On the other hand, the subjective "who" itself serves as the subject in the relative clause, and you can't translate it.

I understand you, but it's a matter of English, not Japanese itself.
You just have to translate the subject "I" in the latter sentence.

You can usually omit the subject in  Japanese, but in this case, it would be better to translate the subject in the relative clause.

Umm, it's just a translation, not Japanese itself.


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## Nino83

Thank you, wind-sky-wind. I haven't fully understood your comment. 


wind-sky-wind said:


> You can usually omit the subject in  Japanese, but in this case, it would be better to translate the subject in the relative clause. Umm, it's just a translation, not Japanese itself.


Are you saying that I can translate "the person (whom) I saw is coming" omitting the subject of the relative clause? 
見た*人*は着いている = the person I saw is coming?


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## wind-sky-wind

I mean, you usually say, その人に会ったよ, omitting the subject "私は."
In the relative case, however, you don't omit the subject "私が."


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## karlalou

Nino83 said:


> The person who plays guitar arrived. ギターを弾く*人*は着いた
> The person (whom) I saw is coming. 私*が*見た*人*は着いている


Both translations are correct. (Just 'coming' is 来(き)ている.)
Yes, there's no relative pronouns in Japanese, so there's no way translate them.


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## Nino83

Thank you all. 
What I'd like to understand is this. 
With transitive verbs if I don't write the subject both meanings are possible, am I right? 
見た*人*は来ている = the person I saw = the person who saw me - is coming.


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## 810senior

見た人は来ている sounds unnatural even if it is grammatically correct... (こういう簡単な文章ほど、自然に訳すのが難しいんですよね・・・。)


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## Nino83

810senior said:


> 見た人は来ている sounds unnatural even if it is grammatically correct...


Then it's better not to omit the subject of the "relative clause", am I right?


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## karlalou

We can't generalize just looking at a small thing.
Basically we just omit the subject when it's obvious without saying it.

So if there's some context, the subject of a relative clause might be also omittable.

There's some Japanese omit too much subjects that causing other people unable to understand them.


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## 810senior

Nino83 said:


> Then it's better not to omit the subject of the "relative clause", am I right?


Yes that's right. It's not to be omitted without any certified contexts as Karlalou said.
To me, well, I'll translate this way if I have to try: 前に会ったことがある(=[you] have seen before)人が、近づいてきている。 or 見覚えのある(=well-remembered, not unfamiliar)人が、こちらに近づいてくる。


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## Nino83

Ah, ok, using the _koto ga_ construction (it happens the fact that) before a noun (and the noun + の construction before a noun).  
Thank you


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## frequency

Yours is a nice sample of the nominative（が）/objective（を） cases.
私が見た人  the person (whom) I saw
私を見た人 the person who saw me
That's all.

Then yours could be 私が見た人が来ている, and this is okay. We say so, too.
But when we compare the two,
1) 私が見た人は来ている sounds like 'Regarding the person whom I saw', 'If speaking about the person whom I saw', he is coming.
2) To avoid repeating が twice, we sometimes use は. But not always. We don't repeat が three times.


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## Nino83

So, it's the subject of the "relative cluse" (adjective clause) that makes the difference (when there is no context).  
Thank you


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