SUBJECT marker, and OBJECT marker

Robert drinks coffee.
(= Talking about Robert, he drinks coffee.)

• coffee --> コーヒー（koohii）
• Robert --> ロバートさん（robaato-san）
• drinks --> のみます　（のm-iます /nom-imas-u/）
• The event described by /nom/ 'drink' has two roles: one drinker, and the other drinkee. The former is the actor of the action described by /nom/, and the latter is the undergoer of that action.

Key 1-a: The form /ga/ is the SUBJECT marker, and the form /wo/ is the OBJECT marker. That is, the nominative form /ga/ indicates that the phrase that the form attaches to is the SUBJECT of the verb that the nominative phrase modifies. The accusative form /wo/ indicates that the phrase that the form attaches to is the OBJECT of the verb that the nominative phrase modifies.The SUBJECT particle and the OBJECT particle both take noun as its complement, i.e., immediately follows noun.

Key 1-b: No noun can occur without a particle attached at its end in a sentence except for the predicative noun in a /desu/ 'copula' clause.

Key 2: If the predicate described by a verb takes two arguments other than locative like love'(x)(y) and put'(x)(y) & LOC(y)(z), then the actor of the action described by the verb corresponds to SUBJECT, and the undergoer of the action corresponds to OBJECT. If an event described by a verb takes only one argument other than locative like run'(x) and fall'(x) & LOC(x)(z), then the role corresponding to the ONLY argument, which might be called theme or actor, corresponds to SUBJECT.

Key 3: There is no difference in the truth-conditional meanings between a clause with an order among a SUBJECT phrase, an OBJECT phrase, topic phrases, and postpositional phrases and another clause with a different order among them.

1)                                         コーヒーを                      のみます。
                                            koohii-o                  nomimasu
                                            coffee-OBJECT            drinks

• The phrase コーヒーを /koohii-o/ modifies the verb, and so the phrase must occur before the verb のみます /nomimasu/.

The topic noun grammatically functions as its subject since the subject phrase does not occur here. The topic noun cannot grammatically functions as its object since the object phrase コーヒーを occurs here. If you use /ga/ in place of /wa/, then the noun /robaato-san/ is interpreted as not topic.

Mary listens to tapes.
(= Talking about Mary, she listens to tapes.)

• tapes --> テープ（teepu）
• Mary --> メアリーさん（mearii-san）
• The event described with /kik/ has two roles: one listener, and the other what is listened to. The former is the actor of the action described by /kik/, and the latter is the undergoer of that action. There is no sense of locative on what is listened to in the action described by /kik/.

Takeshi watches TV.
(= Talking about Mary, she watches TV.)

• TV  --> テレビ（terebi）
• Takeshi  --> たけしさん（takeshi-san）
• The event described with /mi/ 'see; look at; watch' has two roles: one seer, and the other what is seen. The former is the actor of the action described by /mi/, and the latter is the undergoer of that action. There is no sense of locative on what is seen in the action described by /mi/.