So when you say 大勢の人はパーティーに来ました, the focus is on パーティーに来ました, so what would you use this focus for? From an "English thinking" point of view, it sounds like a contrastive use, or an exclamation.

A: "Not many people came to the funeral."
B: "Lots of people went to a party!"

nadiatims Wrote:Thanks for pointing to that article by 三郎 magamo. I think he basically is saying exactly what I did, all be it with more and better examples. It's great to be vindicated by a native speaker
My post was very long, but what I was meaning to show, is that ha/ga is actually really simple if you don't try to tack on all sorts of assumptions, and just allow the nuance to come from the context or logically thinking about what is actually being said. Ｉ　think a lot of the nuance (about new info/old info etc) becomes very obvious once you start reading a little more fluently, and can read between the lines, but you should also understand that none of this nuance is explicitly implied in the grammar (I prefer the term syntax).

Anyway to reiterate the rules:

"ha" simply defines the topic of the sentence. What it is you're talking about.

"ga" defines the agent of the following action. Nothing more, nothing less.

NOTE: I prefer the term "agent" to "subject", because the word "subject" is inherantly confusing. Interestingly, 三郎 also used the word agent in his post. I use the term "action" instead of "verb", because it is less abstract to me.

When ha/ga is used incorrectly in a sentence, it's not because it violates some grammar rule. It's because when that sentence is parsed for meaning by a native speaker (according to proper syntax), it produces an error of logic.

My entire painful experience with ha/ga has been summarized in two posts.

Where the hell were 6 months ago!? やっぱり、I want to both kiss you and kill you, やっぱり。

Edit: Then I was confused even more....

Jarvik7 Wrote:nadiatims wrote:

"ha" simply defines the topic of the sentence. What it is you're talking about.
"ga" defines the agent of the following action. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's not nearly that simple, otherwise linguists wouldn't have been arguing about it for the past few decades.

They need something to argue about.

Jarvik7 Wrote:田中さんが林檎を食べた。
田中さんは林檎を食べた。

In both cases Tanaka is the agent of the action. Both sentences are grammatical and make sense (although they have different nuance).

Wrong. In the second sentence, Tanaka is not the agent of the action. The agent is ommitted.
田中さんは林檎を食べた => Tanaka, (ommitted agent) ate (unspecified) apple.
It can be assumed in 99.9% of cases that Tanaka is the one who ate the apple.
I can't think of a logical situation in which someone else ate the apple but perhaps someone else can.

It is foolish to think は links the agent and the verb by anything other than default.

I'll illustrate this with a common mistake made by my students. (japanese kids learning english)
Most japanese English teachers do not teach that the role (agent/object/indirect object/verb/etc) of a word in an an english sentence is decided by word order. And I've never seen any teacher actually contrast it with the different way these roles are defined in a japanese sentence (using particles). Students do not learn syntax, but instead typical grammar instruction consists of learning sets of supposedly equivalent sentences. The moment students try to deviate even slightly from the basics they fall flat on their face because they lack the basic knowledge that could enable them analyse a sentence, and instead they have rely on intuition (best case scenario) or a bunch of inaccurate grammar rules (wost case scenario).
So imagine a class in which students are writing diary entries to practice past tense.
A student wants to express the following in English:
夏休みは祖母の家に行った。 *note: the agent in this case is clearly not summer holiday.
Now the student already learned「私は〜です。」＝　I am 〜.
So they proceed to replace 私は with 夏休みは and place it in front of the verb. The end result is the extremely common:
"Summer holiday went to grandma's house."
because the student does not recognise that the word before the verb is the agent of the action. Neither do they realise that in English, verbs expect an agent. Obviously, the sentence should be:
In the winter holiday, I went to my grandma's house.
Even students who've been studying 3 years or more do not usually understand basic syntax.

Reading back over that, I went on a bit of a tangent, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at.

kazelee Wrote:Where the hell were 6 months ago!? やっぱり、I want to both kiss you and kill you, やっぱり。

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or joking that it couldn't be so simple?

@nadiatims and others who might be interested

It is often said that there are at least three types of sentences in Japanese: 名詞文, 形容詞文, and 動詞文. Since は/が appears in every type of sentence, no simple rules can cover all the cases well. Popular explanations of the particles such as subject vs. topic are simplified rules that are short and can handle most of the sentences beginners often come across, or you could say teachers/textbooks are deliberately putting aside certain kind of sentence by calling it "too advanced," which is understandable, I suppose.

I think the importance approach I have posted earlier in this thread and your explanation of は/が fall into the category of simplified rules for learners of Japanese as a second/foreign language, and hence they can't be THE rules. For example, as Jarvik7 pointed out, my importance approach is a simplified version of the very old explanation that was very popular among linguists. Since the explanation is old and not based on modern, complicated research methods, it is very simple and seems to represent native speakers' intuitions better in some cases.

The subject/topic approaches taught by instructors in English speaking countries are also simplified versions of popular views. Apparently teachers and textbook authors have been working hard to devise short yet semi-universally applicable rules, and probably every teacher gives a spin when they teach grammar. But I guess their explanations are all, more or less, amalgams of dumbed down explanations that are/were popular among linguists.

Your version of the agent/action type of view seems to work for a lot of simple sentences, though it could be considered too simplistic. But no simple rules are perfect. In my opinion, learners will acquire a language faster if they intuitively learn finer grammatical points through a large amount of comprehensible input. So any explanation will do as long as you can get the basic senses of the particles. My understanding of the explanations I have read is:

Subject/topic, as for/exclusiveness: Popular among English speaking countries. Relatively short and simple. Works for many cases. Easy to explain sentences by using English translations.

Importance/focus: Short and simple. Works for many cases. Closer to native speakers' intuitions. Not good if you want to take advantage of English translations. Obsolete view in linguistics.

New info/old info: Short and simple. Works for many the cases. Old view in linguistics.

Kuno's explanation: Very complicated. Works for almost all the cases. Sometimes counter-intuitive to the average native speaker. Allows teachers to explain sentences by using English translations. Old view in linguistics.

Contemporary explanations by linguists: Uber-complicated. Works even better than Kuno's explanation. English translation? Forget about it.

I think beginners may benefit from one of the simple explanations, and probably many advanced learners and native speakers will find modern research results in linguistics very useful to hone their language skills. If you're a beginner and want some explanation, I recommend you pick up whatever explanation that makes sense to you and try to grow out of it as soon as possible.

As for English education in Japan, it's not very good. I'm Japanese and had learned English grammar at school. I think most of the Japanese agree your average English class at high school will take students nowhere. That said, I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of excellent English teachers in Japan. The problem is that Japan has a plethora of atrocious teachers.

@Jarvik7

I've already spent too much space. I'll write about contrastive usage later. Sorry for being verbose. I need a better command of English...

@vosmiura

You're right about its nuance. If I'm allowed to nitpick, it might be better to use 行きました, not 来ました, if you translate "Lots of people went to a party!" in that context. Of course, if you swap は with が, then 大勢の人 will be focused on. So if you think "Party?! They're all supposed to attend the funeral!", then you use は. If you think "Lots of people?! They're all supposed to attend the funeral!", then you use が. It might sound more idiomatic/faithful to the English sentence if you use synonyms of 大勢の such かなりの, 多くの and 大抵の depending on context, but that's not the point, I guess.

magamo Wrote:It is often said that there are at least three types of sentences in Japanese: 名詞文, 形容詞文, and 動詞文. Since は/が appears in every type of sentence, no simple rules can cover all the cases well.

I'm interested in this. Could you give some examples that demonstrate this?

magamo Wrote:In my opinion, learners will acquire a language faster if they intuitively learn finer grammatical points through a large amount of comprehensible input.

I think most people using this forum can be considered at least semi serious language learners and realise the importance of comprehensible input. I suspect most of us are focusing more on input than output, especially those going the AJATT route. The rules I gave for は＆が are all that is needed for comprehension. が will show you who is doing what, and は shows what is being talked about. When が is absent, then context/guesswork tells you who is doing what. Anything more than this just complicates the process and slows down comprehension. Whether something is new information or old information is irrelevant, and importance/focus can be understood from context.
The rules regarding importance/focus and new/old info make it seem like は＆が are almost the same but with some 微妙 differences, but in reality they play completely different roles within a sentence. Confusion comes from the fact teachers/textbooks complicate the rules to explain usage.
The rules I suggested for the OP are:
1. easy to remember,
2. sufficient probably 99.9% of the time,
3. Don't rely on a lot of native language translation
and
4. make zero assumptions about usage. (this is left for the learner to discover through guesswork/context)

When it comes to output, logic will tell you what to do. For example, I never had to learn that は shouldn't follow a question word. It just obviously doesn't make sense.
eg.
×　誰はケーキを食べましたか => Who, (agent unspecified) ate cake? <---huh???
◯　誰がケーキをたべましたか　=> Who ate cake?

Can you give an example in which my rules aren't sufficient for comprehension?

magamo Wrote:As for English education in Japan, it's not very good. I'm Japanese and had learned English grammar at school. I think most of the Japanese agree your average English class at high school will take students nowhere. That said, I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of excellent English teachers in Japan. The problem is that Japan has a plethora of atrocious teachers.

In defence of Japan, I think suspect foreign language education is pretty bad in most countries. The quality of education just matters less for a lot of Europeans because their languages are closer to english and they get more exposure. In the case of a lot of developing countries (eg India), English is seen as a language of oppurtunity and students work their arses off.

Hey, is this saburou the one from http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/ ?
This guy is a genius.
"昔の無声映画をぼんやり見ているようです"
His explanations are really amusing. I've read a bit his book. The reading was very entertaining. Not that I remember much of it, but it made a lot of sense at the time.

Ah, this は/が discussion:

Aijin Wrote:You do need to understand the basic differences, yes, but don't stress yourself out about all the smaller differences. After a while your brain will pick up on which ones to use in which contexts, just like it does for people who grow up in the language.

^_^

When these grammar flamewars start I feel like I'm not learning the same language you guys are. I see it from a totally different perspective.

Nadiatims, if you saw my earlier posts you'll know I'm not into defending any one rule. And I don't want to enter into a battle of examples. If your way of conceptualizing works for you, great. But, for the sake of beginners, I will chime in that you are overstating your case that your "agent rule" is "all that is needed for comprehension."

* There's no need to pick one golden rule: your approach (like Jarvik's and Magamo's) account for some but not all cases. New/old information and focus is hardly irrelevant. Exposure gives the understanding of how all of it has relevance.

*Your approach is not the easiest for learners for a number of reasons. Most importantly, where the topic is also the subject (agent), it doesn't say anything about which one to use. This is primary reason the use of が　is tricky for learners (and is the point of this discussion). This is also the reason that は　and が　are taught together even though (as you rightly point out) they play different functional roles in a sentence. (が　is also taught as part of the family of other particles which helps to reduce the undue focus on topic vs subject that you mention).

*You ask "Can you give an example in which my rules aren't sufficient for comprehension?" Please check out some grammar books or internet text on this topic and you'll find them. Yours is one of several uses of が　discussed. Please also consider production - will learners know whether to use は　and が using only this rule?

*Discussing linguistics stuff is difficult for non-linguists because we don't share a commonly understood set of terms (and lots of it is mindnumbingly dull). I believe I understood what you were saying in your earlier post, but I also found some of your comments on importance of grammar, syntax, exposure, etc to be a bit contradictory and oversimplified. I take it linguists are not your favourite crowd, but there is (comprehensible ) stuff on point available on the internet that might interest you. In short, the idea that reliance on syntax or grammar doesn't really predict or reflect the actual use of が. There's a lot more contextual, discourse, logic stuff going on. I got the sense you are presenting each as the solution.

So ...I'll echo all the others who recommend that learners read some simple explanations about the various uses, then start reading and listening to get a feel for it. Gray areas. Art. Nuance. Human interaction. Pleasure.

[typos]

Jarvik7 Wrote:magamo: I think you grossly misread Kuno's article. At no point is he judging grammaticality based on the English translations. The English is just there as an aid to understanding for non-native linguists.

I don't think so. I'll show you, without relying on English translation, how ridiculous Kuno's explanation is to native Japanese speakers. I only discuss "contrastive usage" here, but you can find counterexamples to other part of his explanation as well in recent academic papers/books such as 措定文と指定文−ハとガの一面−」by 上林洋二. If the English "aid" in the paper turns an explanation that is nonsense to today's researchers/experts/native speakers into a solid theory that makes sense to English speakers, then I think it's safe to say Kuno was abusing translations. If you think his explanation makes sense, I think it's the English translations that make his ridiculous claims appear to be sound.

So, consider the following sentence:

東京は東日本の主要都市ですが、大阪は西日本の主要都市です。(1)

The は in 東京は is obviously contrastive, hence, according to Kuno's paper, the two sentences are ungrammatical if shown in isolation, i.e., 東京は東日本の主要都市です。is ungrammatical unless there is something to compare with.

If you have a good command of Japanese, you know 東京は東日本の主要都市です。and 大阪は西日本の主要都市です。are perfectly idiomatic and, if you apply Kuno's theory, do appear to contain thematic はs. You could say contrastive は can sometimes become thematic by strange coincidence when comparing partners are left out. That is, (1) and the separated sentences are grammatically different in the sense that はs are functioning differently. So, to keep the two はs in 東京は and 大阪は contrastive, I put "一方" between the two clauses:

東京は東日本の主要都市です。一方、大阪は西日本の主要都市です。(2)

Now the single sentence containing two contrastive はs turned into two independent sentences that mean, as a whole, exactly the same thing as the original. Obviously the function of はs here remains intact, and hence these are contrastive. No native speakers would say はs in (1) and (2) are different, and I think you would agree with me on this. So we now have two independent sentences that contain contrastive はs, which should be ungrammatical.

You might argue that this is due to peculiar usage of 一方. So what if I put another sentence between the two?

東京は東日本の主要都市です。日本の首都です。一方、大阪は西日本の主要都市です。(3)

As you can see, The function of は in 東京は doesn't seem to have changed. What if I put more sentences between them? If the contrastive は thing is bona fide, this は should change its sense at some point:

東京は東日本の主要都市です。日本の首都です。大勢の人が住んでいます。... 一方、大阪は西日本の主要都市です。(4)

Apparently no amount of sentence between 東京は... and 一方、大阪は... can turn these はs into thematic ones. In fact, you can compose a complete paragraph starting with the allegedly ungrammatical sentence without putting a contrastive counterpart in it:

東京は東日本の主要都市です。日本の首都です。大勢の人が住んでいます。...

一方、大阪は西日本の主要都市です。Jarvikくんが住んでいます。... (5)

The first paragraph only talks about Tokyo and contains no contrastive counterpart; 大阪は is in the next paragraph. Still the function of はs doesn't change at all. You can even drop 一方 without changing the function of は here. This is one of the simplest counterexamples you can find on the internet.

The same argument holds for 大勢の人はパーティーに来ました. I can do the same thing starting with it. Even the most adamant native speakers would admit Kuno's contrastive usage is nonsense at this point, I think. But this may not be as clear to non-native speakers, and you might argue that the two paragraphs are contrastive. In other words, はs might be working as a contrastive agent between paragraphs. So we'll explore a little further to make it crystal clear.

Assume I am making a website to introduce major cities in Japan to Japanese learners. Fortunately, I already wrote two long paragraphs about Tokyo and Osaka. Wouldn't it be easier if I upload these on my homepage? So I make a top page and put links to each paragraph:

東京 (Click here!) --> 東京は東日本の主要都市です。日本の首都です。大勢の人が住んでいます。...
大阪 (Click here!) --> 大阪は西日本の主要都市です。Jarvikくんが住んでいます。...

Now the page for Tokyo has no contrastive partner or anything. Still the first sentence means the exact same thing. The は doesn't change its function. If I thought one paragraph was too short, I could write more paragraphs about Tokyo and only about Tokyo. The article begins with a "contrastive は" sentence followed by no comparing partner, which is ungrammatical in Kuno's view.

Is my website written in broken Japanese? Does it sound unnatural? No. Look at the sentence again. You'll notice 東京は東日本の主要都市です。now appears to be thematic in Kuno's terminology. Its meaning hasn't changed at all. The function of は remains intact. But now the は falls into the category of "thematic." What happened to contrastive usage? Is this some magical power the internet has? Nah. I can print it out and use it as a guide to Tokyo.

Apparently Kuno was a prominent researcher and has made tremendous contributions to the study of the Japanese language. His approach was based on very old "generating grammar," which was pretty good to study English. It's understandable that his obsolete view is still dominant among teachers who teach Japanese to English speakers. After all, his approach is very good to take advantage of translation. It's just his 1973 paper is obsolete and totally wrong when it comes to は/が.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Hey, is this saburou the one from http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/ ?
This guy is a genius.
"昔の無声映画をぼんやり見ているようです"
His explanations are really amusing. I've read a bit his book. The reading was very entertaining. Not that I remember much of it, but it made a lot of sense at the time.

Yes. And the book you linked is reviewed by a linguist working at Chuo University (中央大学).

mentat_kgs Wrote:When these grammar flamewars start I feel like I'm not learning the same language you guys are. I see it from a totally different perspective.

Hurr durr. I'm learning English, not Japanese. Most of the posts in this thread are meaningless unless you're already as good at Japanese as professional translators or something anyway. As I already said, linguistics stuff is pretty useless to language learners.

*Head explodes*

blackmacros Wrote:*Head explodes*

My head would be blown up if a native English speaker wrote a similar thing about "the" vs. "a/an" this long in broken Japanese...

blackmacros Wrote:*Head explodes*

ditto

o.O


TOT

magamo Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:*Head explodes*

My head would be blown up if a native English speaker wrote a similar thing about "the" vs. "a/an" this long in broken Japanese...

You're far too modest heh

I can't wait for the day that I can discuss high level concepts like English grammar, in Japanese, to some Japanese people and do some head 'sploding of my own.

But wow...*head explodes again*

nadiatims Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:Where the hell were 6 months ago!? やっぱり、I want to both kiss you and kill you, やっぱり。

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or joking that it couldn't be so simple?

As I read your posts, suddenly, everything just made sense. Unfortunately, as I attempted to read a passage in Japanese, everything broke down again.

I liked that forum post though. It showed ga from a very unique perspective, however, once ha was explained it got confused, yet again.

IceCream Wrote:You've actually echoed what is stated about the logic underlying an/the in philosophical logic. props!!
for instance:
1.) he ate the orange
2.) he ate an orange
In 1.) we are saying, according to logic (this is simplified, but) There exists(existed) a particular orange, and, that particular orange, he ate it.
In 2.) we are saying, of the class of things which are oranges, he ate one of them.
Or, in better words, what you said. But if you're interested, there is an article here: http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/descriptions/ though it's a bit heavy on philosophical logic.
Is this similar to the difference between AはBです and AというものはBです. A in the first case would be a particular A, like "the", and in the second case would be like "an" A, as in, talking about the class of things which are A's?

Thanks for the link. Japanese doesn't have a definite or indefinite article, so it's very interesting to read about the grammar and semantics about them. Language learning-wise, I think the article is so deep that anyone who can read it doesn't need to learn "articles."

About は vs. というものは, I think the former is just a simple statement that means "A is B" and that A can be either "a A" or "the A" depending on context. It seems to me the latter is referring to a "nature" of A. It could be translated as "in itself," "basically," "intrinsically" and the like. But it all depends on context. AというものはBです often sounds like the speaker is speaking from experience, and it often gives the impression that it's kind of a general truth. If a woman says, "男というものはケダモノです," then it sounds like her husband and all her exes cheated on her.

IceCream Wrote:To go back to は・が, sorry if this has been talked about already, but some of your discussion is over my head atm.
When you have a sentence like AはBがC:
1.) which bit of the sentence is the important bit? Is it (AはB) or (BがC) or just (B)?
2.) in this example i reviewed today: この通りは車の音がうるさい
it seems like it should be the うるさい which is important, and not the 車の音. Is this an example where in real life you'd use は twice?

I checked several sentences I could come up with, and it seems that if the sentence is (AはC) + (BがC), then © is the important part of the first sub-clause (AはC), and (B) is the important part of the second sub-clause (BがC). Apparently context determines which of the two embedded clauses is more important, so it seems that either (B), © or (BがC) can be the most important part of the sentence. Intonation, tone, and so on change accordingly.

For instance, これは私がやりました。(I did this) can be これは私がやりました (It is I who did this.) or これは私がやりました (This has already been done) depending on context. If your tone of voice is これは私がやりました, then it means "I've already done this."

So in your example if the speaker stresses 車の音, then it's the most important part of この通りは車の音がうるさい because the speaker is thinking the sub-clause 車の音がうるさい is the main part and is focusing on 車の音 in the sub-clause.

If you said, "この通りは車の音はうるさい," then it would sound like there is a more important thing than 車の音, so it could be like "The noise of cars is annoying here, but it's better than living close to the airport."

I did a little research after I wrote about the simple rule in this thread. And It seems using multiple は in one sentence is ok as long as it isn't confusing, though it could sound unprofessional. If I were to write "この通りは車の音はうるさい," probably I'd change the wording so it reads something like "この通りは車の音に関して言えばうるさい." I often say multiple-は sentences in everyday conversation, though.

IceCream Wrote:ハハ i think im developing an E-crush on you wink i already SRS some of your sentences and now i'm planning to become a stalker and read every single one of your posts♥♥♥

I think I now understand how blackmacros felt...

blackmacros Wrote:

magamo Wrote:I mined a bunch of sentences from your posts.

This makes me unbelievably paranoid. I hope I haven't furnished you with woefully inadequate English at some point in the past