In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

21 Do not attach -wa to interrogative WH-phrases A declarative sentence hardly ever becomes ungrammatical just because of a wrong use of the topic particle. It might sound slightly odd, but most of the time you can find a reasonable interpretation for it. This is because the use of the topic particle is conditioned by contextual factors beyond the sentence. Thus, you might be tempted to use the topic particle everywhere in order to circumvent the problem of having to choose correct particles. This strategy, however, may result in ungrammatical sentences with WH-questions. Recall that WH-questions are those questions which contain phrases such as the following: dare who nani what nani-go which language nani-jin which nationality nan-peeji which page dore which one dono (hon) which (book) ikura how much itsu when doo how These items are known as WH-phrases. A WH-phrase stands for an unknown piece of information. For this reason, you cannot attach the topic particle, which marks a person or thing already anchored in the context, to a WH-phrase. If necessary, attach other particles to WH-phrases. Some examples are given below: Grammatical Ungrammatical * Dare-ga yatte-kimashita-ka. *Dare-wa yatte-kimashita-ka. “Who came over?” * Nani-o shimashita-ka. *Nani-wa shimashita-ka. “What did you do?” * Nan-peeji-o yomimashita-ka. *Nan-peeji-wa yomimashita-ka. 46 “Which page did you read?” * Dore-o tabemasu-ka. *Dore-wa tabemasu-ka. “Which one will you eat?” * Dono jisho-o kaimasu-ka. *Dono jisho-wa kaimasu-ka. “Which dictionary will you buy?” Can you now supply possible answers to these questions? One answer to the first question might be the following: Dare-ga yatte-kimashita-ka. Kinjo-no kodomo-tachi-ga yatte-kimashita. “Who came over?” “The neighborhood children came over.” Note that the same particle is used in the question and the answer. Pattern your answers after this example and maintain the same particle for the question and the answer. By the way, note that we are not saying that you cannot use -wa with WH-questions. Early on, you learned questions like the following: Onamae-wa nan-desu-ka. “What is your name?” This WH-question is grammatical, even though it contains -wa, because the particle -wa is not attached to nan. The point we are trying to bring home is that you may not attach -wa to a WH-phrase. Checking your comprehension: Fill in the parentheses with appropriate particles, and translate the sentences into English. Remember not to use -wa. Kore-wa dare-( ) tsukaimasu-ka. Nihon-jin-wa donna hon-( ) yomimasu-ka. Dore-( ) ichiban yasui-desu-ka. 47 For related topics, see also Units 11, 16, and 20. ...

Share