～たい forms of double-subject sentences


I ocasionally hear sentences such as

> 髪が長くなりたい I want long hair  
>  心が美しくありたい I want to have a beautiful heart

Although I might use similar constructions myself, I do not consider them
fully correct because they sound like " _(My/the) hair wants to become long_ "
and " _(My/the) heart wants to become beautiful_ ". I _am_ aware of Japanese
"double-subject" sentences (although I don't agree with this term) and
understand that these can be considered ～たい forms of them:

> (私は)髪が長くなる → 髪が長くなりたい  
>  (私は)心が美しい → 心が美しくありたい

but would prefer to rewrite to other forms:

> 長い髪が欲しい  
>  美しい心の持ち主でありたい

Now my question is:

Are the first sentences I posted considered fully correct forms, or do others
consider them slightly marked as well? I tried to google for some grammatic
prescription related to this, but found it hard to know what to google for.

**Edit after seeing answers:**

So if 私は鼻が高くなりたい is grammatical, what is the common way to analyze this
sentence?

Obviously, translating 高くなりたい as "want(s) to become high" doesn't work, since
"I" is not the one wanting to become tall, and "nose" doesn't have a will of
its own.

Is it that ～くなりたい operates on a phrase level, i.e.

> 私は(鼻が高)い I am tall-nosed  
>  私は(鼻が高)くなりたい I want to be tall-nosed,

or is there another way to analyze this?




There is a difference among the first two examples you give. `髪が長くなりたい` sounds
more unnatural than `心が美しくありたい`. The latter sounds perfectly okay.

I think what is relevant here are the notions that are technically known as
_stage level_ predicates vs. _individual level_ predicates, or in other words,
_alienable_ property vs. _inalienable_ property. To say it in less technical
terms, the point is whether the predicate is expressing a temporary property
of the subject or a permanent property. `髪が長い` "the hair is long" is a
temporary property. The length of the hair can easily change by growing or
cutting. On the other hand, `心が美しい` "have a clear/beautiful mind" is a
permanent property. The clearness/beauty of someone's mind is a rather stable
property, and is hard to change. I don't have a full analysis, but my hunch is
that you can use this construction for individual level (permanent property)
predicates whereas using this construction with stage level (temporary
property) predicates makes it ungrammatical. Depending on the context and on
the fact of the real world, one predicate can change among stage/individual,
and so the grammaticality of the sentence can change accordingly. And
different predicates have different degrees of how likely it can be
interpreted as one or the other, so there can be a continuum of
grammaticality. I list the following examples. The higher in the list, is more
likely to be stage level, and the construction sounds ungrammatical.

> 目が点になりたい, 手の甲がひび割れになりたい ↑ ungrammatical  
>  髪が長くなりたい, 爪が長くなりたい  
>  爪が紫色になりたい  
>  心が美しくありたい  
>  鼻が高くなりたい, 目が青くなりたい, 足が長くなりたい, 髪がちぢれ毛になりたい ↓ grammatical

Regarding your sentences:

> 長い髪が欲しい  
>  美しい心の持ち主でありたい

they are not completely ungrammatical nowadays, but are still somewhat
unnatural. They are much too nominalized. Probably it is only after the
modernism of Japan that Japanese started to allow these kind of sentences
under the influence of Western languages, particularly English.




I've seen both of those (first two) sentences used, before. As long as you are
implying the (私は・私も, etc.) they should be alright.

As far as your other forms go:

> 長い髪が欲しい -- is fine  
>  美しい心の持ち主でありたい -- is fine  
>  
>  (though I often think of _shop owners_ , for some reason, when I think of
> **持ち主**. It might be related to how 持ち主 has some synonyms like: 店主、経営者、and
> オーナー.)  
>  
> It almost seems like 持ち主 is used, sometimes, in a _sarcastic_ type of way,
> as well. For example: "This person is _the proud owner_ of a pretty pair of
> eyes."

You could always [check out a thesaurus entry on
持ち主](http://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E6%8C%81%E3%81%A1%E4%B8%BB), if
desired.

But still, you may also just want to leave the sentence _as is_ (from the
first, earlier usage...) unless you are working in the context of literature,
or something... where you often want to break out of "regular" or "overused"
phrases.

**Edit (for your "Edit after seeing answers"):**  
  
「私は鼻が高くなりたい」is an interesting phrase... because it normally [can mean
more](http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E9%BC%BB%E3%81%8C%E9%AB%98%E3%81%84) than
just one wanting one's (physical) nose to be "tall". 鼻が高い actually can also
mean something like "(to be) proud". So in general, it would seem the
translation might (more likely,) be:

> 「私は鼻が高くなりたい」 _I want to be proud (of something/someone.)_  
>  「私は(鼻が高)い」 _I am proud (of something/someone.)_

Although, if it was clear that this was about one's physical nose, that
meaning is still ([however accurately](http://ameblo.jp/beauty-
cosme-k/page-2.html),) possible.

