The Nominative/Genitive Alternation and Subordination in the Japanese Language

Abstract: The focus of this paper is the nominative/genitive case alternation phenomenon, often called ga/no conversion, which occurs in the Japanese language. In some kinds of subordinate clauses, the nominative case marker ga can be replaced with the genitive no to mark the subject of a sentence, without causing any particular difference in meaning. A survey concerning said phenomenon has been carried out. The results are examined to find out in which kinds of subordinate clauses the alternation is possible and to analyse semantic differences and frequency of use. The results are also compared to previous research regarding this phenomenon.