Use of が in article about Midsummer Day of the Ox and selling eel


I was reading over this
[article](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10011483941000/k10011483941000.html)
about Midsummer Day of the Ox and selling eel. I'm wondering about the use of
が in this sentence

> この会社は今年、牛肉のステーキや、ビタミン **が** 多いしじみなども売ることにしました

Roughly: This year the company decided on selling things like beef steak, also
many items like basket clams with added vitamins

Why is the が not a で? A part of me reads this as: Vitamins have many basket
clams. Which definitely does not make sense




> ビタミンが多いしじみ

The problem is that you are not correctly parsing this phrase.

> × _many items like basket clams with added vitamins_  
>  × _vitamins have many basket clams_  
>  ○ **_vitamin-rich basket clams_**

Why is that?

  1. **多い does not substitute "many"**  
It's often said Japanese 多い means "many", but it's not true grammar-wise. The
correct statement is 「Xが多い」 = "there are many X", that means 多い's lexical
meaning, if I'm forced to put it in English, is "a large amount of X exists".
And vice versa for 少ない.

  2. **多い cannot modify しじみ alone**  
Due to the aforementioned semantic feature, 多い is not able to move before the
noun, as [Japanese adjective attribution is actually forming relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1016/7810). Consider, how could
you form a relative clause headed by "people" from "a large amount of people
exists"? For this reason, 多いX which is transformed from Xが多い is almost
nonsense. Even when you apparently see such construction, it's usually some
implicit subject (nominative) hidden.

> 多い時期は1日1000人 = ( **観光客が** )多い時期は1日1000人 _1000 people a day during the season
> when there are many ( **visitors** ) [= high season]_
>
> 多い日も安心 = ( **経血が** )多い日も安心 _no worry even on a day where there are much (
> **flow** )_ [sanitary pad ad cliche]

The situation is quite contrastive to English _many_ , which cannot stand as
predicate i.e. "many people" → *"the people are many".

  3. **ビタミンが多い modifies しじみ**  
Thus you can only interpret the clause ビタミンが多い ("there is much vitamin" or
"vitamin is abundant") modifying しじみ. [Japanese relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/7810) allows any kind of
relations between the head noun and the clause, thus you can understand it
virtually as "basket clams in which vitamin is abundant".

More grammatically correctly, the original sentence before relativization was
a [topic-comment structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-
prominent_language) that accepts a complete sentence in the place where
English grammar only expect a predicate. This type of construction typically
describes such content you use possessive expressions to convey in English.

> しじみはビタミンが多い  
>  _As for basket clams, there is much vitamin_ or _basket clams have much
> vitamin_




> ビタミンが多いしじみ

The problem is that you are not correctly parsing this phrase.

> × _many items like basket clams with added vitamins_  
>  × _vitamins have many basket clams_  
>  ○ **_vitamin-rich basket clams_**

Why is that?

  1. **多い does not substitute "many"**  
It's often said Japanese 多い means "many", but it's not true grammar-wise. The
correct statement is 「Xが多い」 = "there are many X", that means 多い's lexical
meaning, if I'm forced to put it in English, is "a large amount of X exists".
And vice versa for 少ない.

  2. **多い cannot modify しじみ alone**  
Due to the aforementioned semantic feature, 多い is not able to move before the
noun, as [Japanese adjective attribution is actually forming relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1016/7810). Consider, how could
you form a relative clause headed by "people" from "a large amount of people
exists"? For this reason, 多いX which is transformed from Xが多い is almost
nonsense. Even when you apparently see such construction, it's usually some
implicit subject (nominative) hidden.

> 多い時期は1日1000人 = ( **観光客が** )多い時期は1日1000人 _1000 people a day during the season
> when there are many ( **visitors** ) [= high season]_
>
> 多い日も安心 = ( **経血が** )多い日も安心 _no worry even on a day where there are much (
> **flow** )_ [sanitary pad ad cliche]

The situation is quite contrastive to English _many_ , which cannot stand as
predicate i.e. "many people" → *"the people are many".

  3. **ビタミンが多い modifies しじみ**  
Thus you can only interpret the clause ビタミンが多い ("there is much vitamin" or
"vitamin is abundant") modifying しじみ. [Japanese relative
clauses](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/7810) allows any kind of
relations between the head noun and the clause, thus you can understand it
virtually as "basket clams in which vitamin is abundant".

More grammatically correctly, the original sentence before relativization was
a [topic-comment structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-
prominent_language) that accepts a complete sentence in the place where
English grammar only expect a predicate. This type of construction typically
describes such content you use possessive expressions to convey in English.

> しじみはビタミンが多い  
>  _As for basket clams, there is much vitamin_ or _basket clams have much
> vitamin_

