Topic marker
Encyclopedia
A topic marker is a grammatical particle
found in the Japanese
, Korean
, and, to a limited extent, Classic Chinese languages used to mark the topic of a sentence. This often overlaps with the subject
of the sentence, causing confusion with learners, as most other languages lack it. However, it differs from a subject in that it puts more emphasis on the item and can be used with words in other roles as well.
. It is written with the hiragana
は, which is normally pronounced ha, but when used as a particle is pronounced wa. It is placed after whatever is to be marked as the topic. If what is to be the topic would have had が (ga), the subject marker, or を ((w)o), the direct object marker, as its particle, those are replaced by は. Other particles (for example: に, と, or で) stay, and は is placed after them.
The English phrase "as for" is often used to convey the connotation of は, though in many cases it sounds unnatural if used in English. It does, however, convey some senses of the particle, one of which is marking changing topics. If you were just talking about someone else, and you switched to yourself, you should say 私は (watashi wa), "as for me...". After that, it wouldn't be necessary to mention again that you were talking about yourself.
In the following example, "car" (車 kuruma) is the subject, and it is marked as the topic. Notice how the が that would normally be there to mark it as the subject has been replaced by は. The topic normally goes at the beginning of the clause.
In the next example, "now" (今 ima) is an adverb, and would normally have no particle, but it is marked as the topic for emphasis.
Example: 陈胜者，阳城人也 (Chensheng zhe, yangcheng ren ye; this is a famous sentence from the book Records of the Grand Historian)
Literally: Chensheng is a Yangcheng person.
Translation: Chensheng is from Yangcheng originally.
Note: The structure of this sentence is more similar to the Japanese wa+desu structure than to modern Chinese, where topic markers have been completely lost and are not used anywhere.
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
found in the Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, and, to a limited extent, Classic Chinese languages used to mark the topic of a sentence. This often overlaps with the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
of the sentence, causing confusion with learners, as most other languages lack it. However, it differs from a subject in that it puts more emphasis on the item and can be used with words in other roles as well.
Japanese: は
The topic marker is one of the many Japanese particlesJapanese particles
Japanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and assertiveness....
. It is written with the hiragana
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
は, which is normally pronounced ha, but when used as a particle is pronounced wa. It is placed after whatever is to be marked as the topic. If what is to be the topic would have had が (ga), the subject marker, or を ((w)o), the direct object marker, as its particle, those are replaced by は. Other particles (for example: に, と, or で) stay, and は is placed after them.
The English phrase "as for" is often used to convey the connotation of は, though in many cases it sounds unnatural if used in English. It does, however, convey some senses of the particle, one of which is marking changing topics. If you were just talking about someone else, and you switched to yourself, you should say 私は (watashi wa), "as for me...". After that, it wouldn't be necessary to mention again that you were talking about yourself.
Example
Here are some examples of its use:In the following example, "car" (車 kuruma) is the subject, and it is marked as the topic. Notice how the が that would normally be there to mark it as the subject has been replaced by は. The topic normally goes at the beginning of the clause.
| 車 | は | 新しい | です。 |
| kuruma | wa | atarashii | desu. |
| car | [topic marker] | new | is. |
| (The) car is new. | |||
In the next example, "now" (今 ima) is an adverb, and would normally have no particle, but it is marked as the topic for emphasis.
| 今 | は | 車 | が | 新しい | です。 |
| ima | wa | kuruma | ga | atarashii | desu. |
| now | [topic marker] | car | [subject marker] | new | is. |
| Now (the) car is new. | |||||
Korean: 는/은
In Korean, 는 (neun) and 은 (eun) function similarly to the Japanese topic marker. 는 (neun) is used after words that end in a vowel and 은 (eun) is used after words that end in a consonant.Classic Chinese: 者 (Zhe)
Zhe is similar to the Japanese wa, but is only used sporatically in Classic Chinese and can only be used for subjects that are people.Example: 陈胜者，阳城人也 (Chensheng zhe, yangcheng ren ye; this is a famous sentence from the book Records of the Grand Historian)
Literally: Chensheng is a Yangcheng person.
Translation: Chensheng is from Yangcheng originally.
Note: The structure of this sentence is more similar to the Japanese wa+desu structure than to modern Chinese, where topic markers have been completely lost and are not used anywhere.
See also
- Topic-prominent languageTopic-prominent languageA topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N...
- Topic (linguistics)
- Japanese grammarJapanese grammarThe Japanese language has a regular agglutinative verb morphology, with both productive and fixed elements. In language typology, it has many features divergent from most European languages. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching. There are many...
- Thematic wa
- Contrastive wa
- Japanese particlesJapanese particlesJapanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and assertiveness....
- wa
- Wiktionary definition of は as a particle