Unsure of meaning for sentence found in article about an automatic train test I'm reading this article and there is a sentence towards the end that looks like this > I'm not entirely sure about the meaning of this sentence as I could read it several ways. How wrong is my translation? My translation breakdown: > 1. = The research of the automatic train > > 2. > > -> People will become insufficient > > = People who do future work will become insufficient for JR Eastern Japan > > > 3. > > -> -> to think > > -> -> to start = started to think > > Final sentence > > > The research of the automatic train has started thoughts about if people doing future work for JR Eastern Japan will become insufficient.

You're not parsing the sentence correctly.

is the subject of .
is the object of .

In , modifies , not .

**** means "thought ~~ and started" or "started, thinking ~~". "Started to think" would be .

You can parse it this way:

>

≂
(The has replaced/absorbed the . is the topic/theme of the sentence, so it's marked with the and moved to the front.)

"JR Eastern Japan thought that [the number of] working people would become insufficient in the future and started researching automatic trains." / "JR Eastern Japan started researching automatic trains, thinking they would become short of workers in the future."