What are peoples takes on the meaning of the に in this sentence:
私に作戦がある
Summary
I have a plan(tactic).
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I’d agree. If we look at other examples of に～がある it follows that meaning. For example, 部屋に椅子がある is “[I] have a chair in my room”, or キッチンにケーキがある (There is a cake in the kitchen). Same here with it literally being something like “I have a plan in me” - (私は)私に作戦がある。 which then in natural English would be “I have a plan”. That’s how I see it.
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I guess my take is as far as I understand に is a targeter for what comes before it. So it just means I…and then the rest of the sentence. For me that only looks like:
I tactics have.
or I have a plan
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This use of に is fairly emphatic, as the speaker is purposely going out of their way to say that ‘in them’ there is a plan. When に is used this way, there is usually some reason for the emphasis. In this case, I’d say the emphasis is that the plan/strategy is a good one.
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Can’t に mean In/At/To/For/On, depending on the context? I think in this case, it’s less implying the “In” as mentioned by others above, but rather “For” ?
What are your thoughts? Translation–> “There is a plan for me”.
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I think 〇〇に作戦がある could be a plan/strategy “for” or “in” something in English, but 私に作戦がある as “I have a plan” is pretty common, so it’s probably that.
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“Having” is not always transitive. In some languages you don’t “have” something, but rather, there’s something “at you” or “on you.” For instance, in Russian, an Indo-European language like English, you’d say “u mnya yest plan”, which would mean more or less “by me is plan”; in Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language, you’d say “mul on plaan”, or literally, “on me is plan”. It’s good to keep in mind that “having” is enacted differently across different languages, and apparently Japanese uses similar constructions very often!
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