夜なぜか眠れなかったそうで

[theseus_]

Context:
朝起きると、いつも私より起きるのが(#1)遅い旦那さんが先に起きていました。夜なぜか眠れなかったそうで、朝測ると熱がありました。解熱剤を飲んでもらい、私は会社に出勤しました。仕事ではまた新しいことを教わりました。
家に帰ると旦那さんが(#2)夜ご飯を作ってくれていました。体調はましになったそうですが、夜は好きな野球の試合を見ながら眠ってしまっていました。まだ体調が悪そうです。

There is no subject in the two underlined sentences. According to the author's explanation, I knew subjects of two underlined sentences were the author's husband, but I didn't find it out by myself.

Are there obvious marks to show who is the subject? Do the two underlined "が" showed that? Is the underlined "私は" also a hint for changing subject?

 

[ktdd]

The first が merely marks the subject in the relative clause 起きるのが遅い which modifies 旦那さん.
いつも私より起きるのが遅い旦那さん = my husband, who always rises later than I do

As for the subject of the following sentence, context has made it sufficiently clear I think. First, it was the husband who was up when the wife awoke. Then there's the 推量の助動詞「そうだ」. "It seems that for some reason ___ couldn't sleep last night." - "I" can hardly fit into that sentence, don't you think?

Now with that fact established, who was having a fever and took some medicine and seemed to feel better later but still not really okay, is quite obvious, in my opinion. Therefore, no explicit subject is needed.

 

[Flaminius]

Then there's the 推量の助動詞「そうだ」. "It seems that for some reason ___ couldn't sleep last night."

If you are referring to そう in 夜なぜか眠れなかったそうで, its function is not 推量 (which I call tentatively assumptive). A more proper parsing is that そうで is the adverbial form of そうだ of 伝聞 (reportative).

You can also arrive at the same conclusion by looking what comes before the word in question. Though similar in form, the two functions differ in the forms that they force to the verb they modify. While the reportative so casts the verb into its conclusive form, the assumptive so casts the verb into its adverbial forms. Since the past marker た does not have an adverbial form, そう (well, そうで to be exact) cannot but be reportative.

There is an exception to the rule above. If the assumptive so combines with an adjective, it renders the adjective to its stem, hence 悪そうです is, "(His) conditions look bad."

 

[ktdd]

Oops, I made a grave mistake. Should have known better. Thanks for pointing it out, Flaminius.

 

[theseus_]

Thank you all!

You can also arrive at the same conclusion by looking what comes before the word in question. Though similar in form, the two functions differ in the forms that they force to the verb they modify. While the reportative so casts the verb into its conclusive form, the assumptive so casts the verb into its adverbial forms. Since the past marker た does not have an adverbial form, そう (well, そうで to be exact) cannot but be reportative.

There is an exception to the rule above. If the assumptive so combines with an adjective, it renders the adjective to its stem, hence 悪そうです is, "(His) conditions look bad."

Many thanks for the clear explanation. I notice you also mentioned the distinction between "assumptive so" and "reportative so" in my previous post. It seems easy to be confused.

 

[gengo]

朝起きると、いつも私より起きるのが(#1)遅い旦那さんが先に起きていました。夜なぜか眠れなかったそうで、朝測ると熱がありました。解熱剤を飲んでもらい、私は会社に出勤しました。仕事ではまた新しいことを教わりました。
家に帰ると旦那さんが(#2)夜ご飯を作ってくれていました。体調はましになったそうですが、夜は好きな野球の試合を見ながら眠ってしまっていました。まだ体調が悪そうです。

Another marker in the first sentence is the use of もらい (飲んでもらい). This tells us that the speaker is referring to someone else (her husband), and that she had him take a fever reducer.

This reportative use of そう often translates in English to "say," and in the above case I might translate it as "That night he said he couldn't sleep for some reason."