Nominalisation and は

Question

I posted a question a long time ago about why we need の in this sentence:

毎日、同じ物を食べるのは、面白くない

Eating the same thing everyday is not interesting.

To which I was told that adding の here nominalises the verb and turns it into the gerund which I understood completely. However, I was just curious as to what the nuance is if you didn't have の?

毎日、同じ物を食べるは、面白くない

I think the nuance here could be interpreted as

"To eat the same thing everyday is not interesting"

But I'm really unsure.

I read in another post that you cannot put が here because が takes a noun. But I read nowhere else about having は here without the の to nominalise the verb.

Before you post about "you can nominalise the verb with の then add が ~", this is not really what I'm asking.

I just want to know what is the nuance if I just have は after the verb and no の. Is that grammatically correct? I have not seen it anywhere and I'm curious as to where and when this would be used (if it makes sense).

Answer 1

In "regular" Modern grammar, it would not be considered correct to say:

「毎日{まいにち}、同{おな}じ物{もの}を食{た}べるは、おもしろくない。」

You need to place the nominalizer 「の」 between 「食べる」 and 「は」.

In Classical Japanese, however, it was perfectly grammatical to place a subject marker 「は」 or 「が」 directly after a verb in its dictionary form.

Even today, you will occasionally encounter the remnant of that old usage in certain fixed expressions such as:

「逃{に}げるが勝{か}ち。」= "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day." A literal TL is: "To run away is to win."

「見{み}るは信{しん}ずるなり。」= "Seeing is believing."

If you actually used this old form (sans nominalizer) outside of these fixed expressions in an everyday kind of conversation today, you would sound incredibly funny.