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Following up on my earlier question, I want to check if I've got a feel for this subordinate clause particle use correct. This is probably a duplicate, but it really helps me understand things better if I'm posing the question myself. If this infringes any rules, though, I'll happily remove it.
In the sentence
私 (が?は?) 朝起きるとき、鳥 (が?は?) いつも歌います。
which instance uses が, and which は? I get the feeling the first instance is が, and the second, は, but I could be wrong.
Any help is much appreciated.
It actually depends on the context, but the "usual" way to say this is:
私が朝起きるとき、鳥がいつも歌っています。
When I wake up, (I find) birds are always singing.
In your example, "私は" sounds unnatural because it gives too much emphasis on "私", while actually it's so much unimportant that most of native Japanese speakers would omit it at all.
You have also to note that the verb "歌う" is only used when talking about human beings. When talking about birds, you have to use "鳴く" instead.
And as you're talking about a natural phenomena which is still occurring in present, it's definitely better to use continuous form.
So the correct sentence is:
朝起きるときはいつも鳥が鳴いています。
you have to use "鳴る" instead -- You mean 鳴く, not 鳴る, right? It's perfectly fine to use 歌う for birds, though.
(First, 起きるとき means when someone is about to get up from bed, not just when someone gets up.)
All the combinations are possible and each of them changes the meaning or the structure of the sentence.
What's important is that topic phrases and conditional clauses are independent from each other and both of them functions as topic parts in a sentence.
The structure of this sentence goes this way.
topic comment
私は … （いつも歌う）
朝起きるとき … （いつも歌う）
鳥は … （いつも歌う）
Since it has too many topics, it's ambiguous who is the agent to sing or the one who gets up. For example, if 私 is the one who sings, it naturally leads to 鳥を歌う (an obscure expression, though) with 鳥 topicalised and the one who wakes up is probably the same 私. As for the reason why 鳥 is topicalized here, it may be shared information between the listener (in this case, 鳥は is often omitted) or convey contrastive nuance depending on stress in pronunciation or interpretation from context, or because of the both factors.
If 鳥 is the one who sings, it's probably conversation among pet owners. In this case, it's unsure who is the one to get up.
This time, it's like this.
topic comment
私が朝起きるとき … 鳥がいつも歌う
This can only translate to "everytime I'm getting up, birds sing". When the fact that birds always sing is new information or feels unexpected, it's expressed without being topicalized. If you use 鳥は instead, the issue behind it is parallel to the above.
Edit; In reality, it should be a little more complicated because we have to consider difference between とき and ときは, and the topic-comment model shouldn't be flat.
It's clearly the speaker who is the one getting up, and that is when the birds are always singing. 朝（私が）起きる時、鳥（が/は）いつも鳴いている。
For the second part, both が and は are possible. が would be normal just be stating the fact that the birds are always singing. は would be shifting the focus of the sentence to the birds. It would be more of you dwelling and commenting on the birds, rather than your experience waking up. A good way to think of Xは... is "About X..." or "As for X..."
が is normal, but there is a context where it can have the effect of emphasizing. That is when you are specifying which thing/person out of a bunch of possibilities. It depends on the sentence and how you say it, whether or to what degree the が sounds emphasizing.
彼が言った。 (Who said that?) He said that.
あいつらがやった。 (Who did it?) They did it.
彼女がここの担任。 She is the teacher in charge of this class.
私が毎日学校に行く。 Everyday I go to school.
Back to 私（は・が）, if you were to say 私は, then that would be like drawing the focus towards you ie. "As for me...". That would sound unnatural, because there's no reason to center the subject of the sentence so much around yourself when you're just saying that there always are birds singing when you wake up. At least that's how the sentence sounds by itself. A specific example of a situation where it might make sense to use 私は is if you were discussing with other people, and the topic was "What it is like at your place in the morning." Then, it would be natural to use 私は, to the effect of "As for me...".
