How do you form relative clauses that involves first person action? For example : "There aren't people I can talk to". Basically my doubt is about all those questions that require a particle like "to", "ni" and the like, when you can't use V-te ageru/kureru/morau to explicitate who's doing what to whom..Don't know if it's clear >.<
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No, not really clear. But, "There aren't people I can talk to" could be translated as 話せる人々がいない. Maybe this already answers your question?– Earthliŋ ♦Commented Apr 28, 2013 at 10:31
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Are you talking about ambiguous cases like 彼女が好きな彼?– nkjtCommented Apr 28, 2013 at 11:15
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1doesn't 話せる人々がいない mean "there aren't people who can talk" ?– DandyCommented Apr 28, 2013 at 11:43
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1Or maybe Japanese just uses an ambiguous sentence like that? I try to give an additional example: "the person I wrote a letter to", where basic sentence is 人に手紙を書いた. Do you simply drop that に ? (something like 私が手紙を書いた人 ?)– DandyCommented Apr 28, 2013 at 11:49
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2@Dandy Yes...it's ambiguous... "the person I wrote a letter to" can be「私が手紙を書いた人」。「話せる人が(誰も)いない。」「話す人が(誰も)いない。」「しゃべる人がいない。」etc. can be read as "I have no one I can talk to" and "There's no one who can talk". (「話す相手がいない。」「しゃべる相手がいない。」would be "I have no one to talk to".)– user1016Commented Apr 28, 2013 at 23:10
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1 Answer
I think you might find the explanation of agency you are looking for in the introduction to the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (which I have not got to hand right now) but the other approach is to think of different ways of conveying what you want to say eg
"There aren't people I can talk to".
(which even in English feels like a rather clumsy construction anyway(?))
= There is nobody I can talk to/with = There is nobody who can talk to/with me
= 僕と話せる人がいない
or perhaps even;
僕と話せる人は誰もいない
