Making Sense of Japanese Grammar

20. -ga and -o mark a fresh participant; -wa marks a familiar participant already anchored in a context

20 -ga and -o mark a fresh participant; -wa marks a familiar participant already anchored in a context In the previous discussion of the contrast between the subject and the direct object (Unit 19), we avoided reference to the topic particle -wa. In this unit, we study the contrast between the topic and other noun phrases, specifically the subject and the direct object. A good way to begin this task is by examination of a story like Kintaro, which might go as follows: Once upon a time, there was a chubby little boy named Kintaro. He was very strong. In fact, he was so strong heoften wrestled with his friend the bear. . . . In this passage, Kintaro appears four times as the subject of a clause. The first reference introduces him to the reader as a fresh participant. Once this is accomplished, he is no longer a fresh participant; he is anchored in the context, and the focus of the story shifts to what he does. This change in status is reflected in this story in the shift from an indefinite noun phrase “a chubby little boy” to a pronoun “he.” In Japanese, this contrast is reflected in the use of the particles, -ga and -wa. The subject particle -ga, introduces a thing or person into a story; the topic marker -wa reintroduces this item as a familiar participant already anchored in the context. A typical organization of a narrative in Japanese is exemplified by the following short passage: Kyoo Miyamoto-san-ga kimashita. Miyamoto-san-wa Nihon-go-no sensei-desu. Miyamoto-san-wa watashi-to sakkaa-no shiai-o mimashita. “Ms. Miyamoto came today. She is a Japanese teacher. She watched a soccer game with me.” Notice that the first reference to Ms. Miyamoto is accompanied by the subject particle -ga, while the second and the third references are acompanied by the topic particle -wa. The change of status that we are studying here is almost like that of an initially newsworthy rocket settling into an orbit and functioning as a station for future scientific observations that will be more newsworthy. If we use this analogy, the ga-marked noun phrase is a rocket before it settles into an orbit; the wa-marked 43 noun phrase is its condition after it is in orbit. Until something unusual happens to it, and it becomes newsworthy again, it carries the topic particle -wa. Some objects are from the very outset “in an orbit” or in a stable condition without being newsworthy. One example is a participant in an unchanging condition or in a general truth, as in the case of the topic noun phrase Nihon “Japan” in the following sentence: Nihon-wa shimaguni-desu. “Japan is an island nation.” Another is the speaker himself/herself, as in the case of watashi “I” in the following sentence, an individual naturally anchored in his or her universe and taken for granted: Watashi-wa asatte Nihon-e kaerimasu. “I am going home to Japan the day after tomorrow.” Such entities are always marked with the topic marker unless they become newsworthy, as in the following exchange: Dare-ga asatte Nihon-e kaerimasu-ka. Watashi-ga asatte Nihon-e kaerimasu. “Who is going home to Japan the day after tomorrow?” “I am going home to Japan the day after tomorrow.” So far, we have been contrasting the subject and the topic. The discussion might have given you the impression that the topic always has something to do with the subject. This is not the case. Take a look at a concrete example below: Topic Time Subject Direct Object Verb kinoo Kintaroo-ga omochi-o tsukurimashita “Kintaro made a rice cake yesterday.” 44 These four sentences are related. The latter three sentences are generated from the first sentence by turning different noun phrases into the topic of the sentence. This process involves attaching the topic particle and (usually) moving the noun phrase to the beginning of the sentence. It is not just the subject that turns into a topic; the temporal phrase can turn into the topic, and so can a direct object. We can think of a story line such as the following, in which the first sentence introduces a new participant using the direct object particle while the second sentence marks its direct object with the topic particle: Kintaroo-ga chokkei 2-meetoru-no omochi-o tsukurimashita. Sore-wa kuma-to issho...