Making Sense of Japanese Grammar

16. The particle -wa identifies what the sentence is about and urges the listener to pay attention to the part that follows

16 The particle -wa identifies what the sentence is about and urges the listener to pay attention to the part that follows The particle -wa means something like “speaking of” or “as for.” It identifies the topic which the sentence is about and urges the listener to pay attention to the part that follows. Observe the following example first: Shinbun-wa kimasen-deshita. “Speaking of the newspaper, it didn’t come.” In this sentence, shinbun “newspaper” is the topic of the sentence because -wa is attached to it. This sentence is used when the speaker thinks that the listener is interested in what happened to the newspaper. For example, an observant office worker might notice that her distraught co-worker is helplessly looking for the morning newspaper. Now, with shinbun-wa, the speaker alerts her co-worker that she is going to provide new information pertaining to his concern. This type of sentence pattern, in which new information is provided toward the end of the sentence (the old-to-new sequence), is quite common in Japanese. For instance, the Japanese counterparts of “What is your name?” and “Who is this?” turn up in the following way: Onamae-wa nan-desu-ka. “What is your name?” Kochira-wa donata-desu-ka. “Who is this?” The answers to these questions also conform to this pattern, in which information flows from the known item to the unknown: Namae-wa Kimura-desu. “My name is Kimura.” Kochira-wa Kimura-sensei-desu. 33 “This is Professor Kimura.” Given this explanation, can you tell the difference between the following two sentences? Are-wa Tookyoo-tawaa-desu. “That is Tokyo Tower.” Tookyoo-tawaa-wa are-desu. “Tokyo Tower is that one.” The first of these is the answer to the following question: Are-wa nan-desu-ka. “What is that?” The second is the answer to the following question: Tookyoo-tawaa-wa dore-desu-ka. “Which is Tokyo Tower?” The parts in boldface ask for new information, which their declarative counterparts provide. The verb-like parts of these questions can be omitted, too, leaving just a noun phrase with -wa accompanied by a rising intonation. Such utterances function equally well as questions: Are-wa? (Are-wa) Tookyoo-tawaa-desu. “(What is) that?” “(That) is Tokyo Tower.” Tookyoo-tawaa-wa? (Tookyoo-tawaa-wa) are-desu. “(Which is) Tokyo Tower?” “(Tokyo Tower) is that one.” Note that these questions are different from questions like the following: Are-desu-ka. Hai. “Is it that one?” “Yes.” 34 Efferu-too-desu-ka. Iie. “Is it the Eiffel Tower?” “No.” These are yes-no questions consisting of a verb-like element, as explained in Units 5 and 6. What they elicit is quite different from what topic phrases alone elicit. This is because yes-no questions merely seek a validation, while lone topic phrases invite the listener to supply the missing information, just like WH-phrases. More explanations of the topic particle will be provided in Units 18, 20, and 21 in comparison with other particles. For the moment, study these additional examples. Namae-wa shirimasen-deshita. “Speaking of the name, I didn’t know it.” Tookyoo-tawaa-wa ikimasen-deshita. “Speaking of Tokyo Tower, I didn’t go there.” 35 For related topics, see also Units 15, 18, 20, and 21. ...