In Japanese, a speaker may only directly express their own emotions, as they cannot know the true mental state of anyone else. Thus, in sentences comprising a single adjective (often those ending in ), it is often assumed that the speaker is the subject. For example, the adjective (寂しい) can represent a complete sentence that means "I am lonely." When speaking of another person's feelings or emotions, "sabishisō" (寂しそう) "seems lonely" would be used instead. Similarly, "neko ga hoshii" (猫が欲しい) "I want a cat," as opposed to "neko wo hoshigatte iru" (猫を欲しがっている) "seems to want a cat," when referring to others. Thus, the first-person pronoun is usually not used unless the speaker wants to put a special stress on the fact that they are referring to themselves or if it is necessary to make it clear.