Does the highlighted に in the following passage correspond to a dative subject marker? I am having a hard time trying to parse the following passage, in particular the particle highlighted in bold: > **** Factoring out clauses irrelevant to the discussion: > **** I suspect this is a case of as a dative subject marker, because for it to be the location marker for , the verb should be and not . I am not sure on how to parse this bit: > **** I would rather say > **** The other possibility I am considering is that corresponds to the verb {} as in , so the would be the indirect object marker in this case. But I am not sure at all.

Since in is as you guessed, it is the indirect object marker.

I think 'dative subjects' mostly appear in permission/causation constructions.

* **** I want to make my kids read books.
* **** The people won't let the government increase taxes any more.



(I'm not familiar with the concept though.)