Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1. The influence of Western languages on Japanese -- 1.2. Historical background of Japanese language contact with Western languages -- 1.3. Reformation of the language -- 1.4. Oobun-chokuyaku-tai and its influence -- 1.5. Changes observed in the grammatical subject -- 1.6. Implications and problems -- Chapter 2: Theoretical problems: Defining the notion of subject -- 2.1. The problem of the notion of subject in Japanese -- 2.2. The notion of subject in this study -- 2.3. Summary -- Chapter 3: Data and theoretical concepts -- 3.1. Data -- 3.2. Method -- Chapter 4: Explicit and implicit subjects -- 4.1. Changes in the occurrence of explicit and implicit subject -- 4.2. Implicitness in subjects -- 4.3. Changes in the occurrence of different subject forms -- 4.4. Factors that influence explicit/implicit manifestation of subjects -- 4.5. Summary -- Chapter 5: Inanimate Subjects in transitive, passive, and causative constructions -- 5.1. Inanimate subjects with transitive verbs -- 5.2. Passive constructions and inanimate subjects -- 5.3. Causative constructions and inanimate subjects -- 5.4. Summary -- Chapter 6: The particles ga and no -- 6.1. Explicit subjects and subject marking particles -- 6.2. Unmarked subjects -- 6.3. Changes in the function of ga and no -- Chapter 7: The topic particle wa -- 7.1. Background discussion -- 7.2. Macro function and micro function of wa in present-day Japanese -- 7.3. Earlier uses of the particle -- 7.4. External influence -- 7.5. Summary -- Chapter 8: Concluding remarks -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.