Using たい-form in qualifiers


By "qualifiers," I mean something like this:

> **昨日見た** 映画
>
> The movie **that I saw yesterday**

I understand that you cannot use たい-form to talk about what other people want.
So, can we use たい-form in qualifiers? For example, can we say something like
"The dog that wants to eat"?

> 食べたい犬

Or would that just end up translating as "The dog that I want to eat"?

Alternatively, could we use たがる to say that we think the dog wants to eat?

> 食べたがっている犬




This grammatical structure is usually called a [relative
clause](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/5010).

Both ～たい and ～たがる can modify a noun that follows, and they can optionally have
a subject marked with が [or
の](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/12825/5010). For example you can say:

>   * 私が食べたい料理 the dish I want to eat
>   * 肉を食べたがっている犬 a dog who wants to eat meat
>   * その犬が食べたがっている肉 the meat the dog wants to eat
>   * 彼が見たい映画 the move he wants to watch
>

As you may know, there is an important difference between ～たい and ～たがる, which
is described in detail
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/23861/5010).

食べたい犬 without any context is an ambiguous and confusing expression, but can be
easily taken as "the dog which I want to eat," because たい _usually_ describes
the speaker's own desire.




This grammatical structure is usually called a [relative
clause](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/5010).

Both ～たい and ～たがる can modify a noun that follows, and they can optionally have
a subject marked with が [or
の](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/12825/5010). For example you can say:

>   * 私が食べたい料理 the dish I want to eat
>   * 肉を食べたがっている犬 a dog who wants to eat meat
>   * その犬が食べたがっている肉 the meat the dog wants to eat
>   * 彼が見たい映画 the move he wants to watch
>

As you may know, there is an important difference between ～たい and ～たがる, which
is described in detail
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/23861/5010).

食べたい犬 without any context is an ambiguous and confusing expression, but can be
easily taken as "the dog which I want to eat," because たい _usually_ describes
the speaker's own desire.

