Take the 2-minute tour ×  I just finished reading this paper,
which describes the situations in which Japanese allows a dative
subject and a nominative object. For example, the verb 分かる can
be used like this:   "彼" is the subject but is marked with "に"
instead of "が", and similarly "英語", the object, is marked
irregularly with the nominative particle "が" instead of the
usual "を". According to the paper, this happens in Japanese when
a verb 1) licenses this case marking and 2) the verb is
transitive (there is an object). There are two parts to my
questions:  1)The 可能形 licences dative subjects:   but not   This
is still ruled out for intransitives, so 5a in the paper shows
that you cannot say 「*赤ちゃんにもう歩ける」. Does this change if we add
another argument such as a location? Can I say 「人間にはその道が歩けない」
(let's say it's covered in lava or something).  2) The paper
also mentions that there are exceptions to this rule, one of
them being certain kinds of questions. Can anyone think of a
Japanese question with a transitive ve