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晩ご飯を食べなかったボブは、映画で見た銀行に行った。
Bangohan o tabenakatta bobu wa, eiga de mita ginkou ni itta.

This means "Bob, who didn't eat dinner, went to the bank HE saw at the movie." What if I want to say "Bob, who didn't eat dinner, went to the bank I saw at the movie." What do I need to change/add?

And why it doesn't mean "...the bank that saw at the movie" being a subject but an object instead in that clause?

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As for the first question, you can simply explicitly indicate the subject in your second relative clause.

晩ご飯を食べなかったボブは、私が映画で見た銀行に行った。
Bangohan o tabenakatta bobu wa, watashi ga eiga de mita ginko ni itta.


As for the second question, how a relative clause modifies the following noun depends on what is said or unsaid in the relative clause. Let's start from this simple sentence:

私は映画で銀行を見た。
Watashi wa eiga de ginko wo mita.
I saw a bank in the movie.

You can make three noun phrases from this:

  • 映画で銀行を見た
    eiga de ginko wo mita hito
    the person who saw a bank in the movie
  • 私が映画で見たもの
    watashi ga eiga de mita mono
    the thing which I saw in the movie
  • 私が銀行を見た映画
    watashi ga ginko wo mita eiga
    the movie where I saw a bank

As you can see, there is no word that corresponds to English relative pronouns (eg "which", "who", "where", "that") which can indicate the grammatical role of the relative clause. This means this phrase can be theoretically ambiguous:

  • 銀行を見た映画
    1. the movie where [I/he/etc] saw a bank
    2. the movie that saw a bank (?)

In most cases this is not a problem, because everyone knows a movie is an inanimate object can't see something. However, you can still make an ambiguous phrase which can be interpreted in two ways if there is no context:

  • 本を貸した人
    hon o kashita hito
    1. the person who lent a book (to someone) (i.e., the giver)
    2. the person to whom [I/he/etc] lent a book (i.e., the recipient)
  • 私が好きな猫
    watashi ga suki na neko
    1. the cat who likes me
    2. the cat I like

Related questions:

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  • Just to clarify, since I believe this to be the case but want to make sure, since I don't usually think about it (and have started avoiding this pattern out of concern), with the 本を貸した人 example, do you mean that in the second case, 人 could refer to, e.g. 彼女 in the situation where「彼は彼女に本を貸した」? I.e., the person *to whom a book was lent? Commented May 13, 2020 at 3:40
  • @weirdalsuperfan Yes. Maybe I should have said "the person who [I/he/etc] lent a book to"? If it's better as an English phrase, please feel free to edit this answer.
    – naruto
    Commented May 13, 2020 at 3:56
  • thanks! Just wanted to make sure I understood. Made an edit. Btw, do you have any pointers to discussions of the 使い分け for things like 本を貸した人 vs (hypothetical constructs like?) 本を貸された人. I guess 本を貸してもらった人 changes the subject/focus/doer to either the recipient or a 第三者 that requested the lending on the recipient's behalf...? And the 受け身 is ambiguous too b/c it could mean a 第三者 affected by the 本を貸したこと (maybe the real owner of the book who had it lent out without their permission)? Can it also refer to the receiver? Does just nobody say stuff like that? Does it depend on the type of 動詞? Commented May 14, 2020 at 0:19

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