Subject of adjectives describing feelings


I think I have observed certain patterns regarding adjectives describing
feelings. Are the following observations correct?

Take うれしい as an example. The Wisdom English-Japanese Dictionary defines うれしい
as “glad, happy, thrilled”. Having read a few example sentences, I think that
it would be wrong to translate “I am glad” as 私がうれしい because I noted a pattern
that in “Xがうれしい“, X is always the thing that causes the feeling of happiness.

Likewise, I suppose that “a happy person” should not be translated as うれしい人,
because in うれしいY, Y again should be the thing that evokes the feeling of
happiness. The correct translations for “I feel glad” and “a happy person”
should be 私がうれしいと感じる/思う and うれしいと思っている人.

I think the same holds, for example, for ありがたい being defined as “be grateful”
and 心細い as “lonely, uneasy”. (If the above observations are correct, then
perhaps I have come to understand why at the elementary level, I like apples =
私はりんごが好きだ. 好き describes the property of apples of evoking the feeling in 私 of
liking apples.)

Is it correct to claim the following?

  1. Adjectives describing emotions and feelings generally mean “having the property/capability of evoking those feelings”.
  2. Item 1 holds both when an adjective A appears as a predicate and when it modifies a noun. That is, in XがA and AY, both X and Y are the object/event/person evoking the feeling of A and cannot be the person harboring the feeling of A.
  3. Items 1 and 2 apply both for い-adjectives and な-adjectives.




Assuming my interpretation of your argument is correct, you are very very much
on the right track! But unfortunately I can prove wrong not against individual
bullet points 1 to 3, but the point prior to reaching them. If my
interpretation is wrong, sorry please correct me.

> in うれしいY, Y again should be the thing that evokes the feeling of happiness

Exactly! For 「嬉しいニュース」 (good news), the news **evokes** happiness, but news
**doesn't receive** happiness.

> The correct translations for “I feel glad” and “a happy person” should be
> 私がうれしいと感じる/思う...

From one logical perspective yes, but let's decompose that "I feel glad" and
add a kind little "thanks".

What you are saying is:

  * 私は嬉しい気持ちになっています。ありがとうございます。
  * 私は嬉しい気持ちに浸っています。ありがとうございます。
  * 私は嬉しい気持ちを感じてます。ありがとうございます。
  * etc...

Yes, they're correct. But most of the time we say: **私は嬉しい気持ちです。ありがとうございます。**

Actually, no. It becomes shorter: **（私は）嬉しいです。ありがとうございます。** _We don't really
say 私は but for explanation, I leave it here._

It can be shorter too:

  * 私、うれしい。ありがとうございます。
  * うれしい。ありがとうございます。

Let's go back to 「私は嬉しいです」 and observe those words. If we follow one set of
logic, it sounds like a lunatic. 「私は人間です」 (I am human) makes sense, but
「私は嬉しいです」 (I am happy) makes no sense. This works similarly in English too:

**John** "I am happy!"

**Karen** "Hell no, you are not a "happy", you are a human. You are merely
"feeling happiness in your soul"."

Karen is kind of making a valid point, but it doesn't work that way. There are
many logic and rules intertwined that makes 「私、うれしいです！」 a valid statement. I
won't go beyond the scope of your question, but I hope this helps clear some
of your doubts.

