Over the past few days I've been studying something that's always bugged me, the particle が. What does it really mean? What does it translate to? Every time I hear/read it it's like an unnecessary "Gah?" getting in the way of the sentence.

I've come to realise it doesn't 'mean' anything, it just signifies emphasis on the noun before it and nothing else.

The role of subject is indicated by the noun in sentence initial position. There is no need for a particle to tell us that. Apparently it is used to "connect" that noun with an upcoming verb/adjective, ie. その時歴史が動いた. Here, supposedly the が is telling us that 歴史 is connected to 動いた. Here's a better idea, get rid of が altogether: その時歴史動いた. Everything makes perfect sense still. Try it with any sentence with が in and the results will be the same. The only difference here being emphasis has been dropped from 歴史 for whatever reason. We can still acknowledge it is the subject due to it being a noun in a sentence initial position.

Given, が may often appear to be a subject marker as it is most likely placed besides the subject but this is because it is often necessary to emphasise (ie. it is being brought up for the first time, it is answering a question etc). But it is not necessary if the speaker does not deem that that subject needs stressing (eg. a subjectless sentence, ie 「行きました」 or a sentence containing the 'zero pronoun' subject, ie. 「私は(zero pronoun here, in this case "I")行きました」 Needing no GA to come into play seeing how the subject has already been established/assumed after the topic has been stated). Possibly this could also relate to conversational forms where が is often dropped too, where no-one can be arsed to stress anything unless they really have to.

Trying to deduce what sort of message should be sent to my brain when seeing a word marked by が, I eventually whittled it's meaning down to: 'が indicates that the word it marks: is (in the state of (the action of)):' But does this not go without saying? Rather, が is used to add a dash of salt to the word, a nuance, for whatever reason the speaker deems fit (most likely context). In some ways perhaps it could be compared to italic words in English.

WA marks the topic, が stresses what it marks. If a student can become understanding of when or when not emphasis must be thrown on a subject they could become much more efficient in differentiating between は and が.

Well these are just my thoughts really. I'm only posting it because I've read a few explanation on GA and have never come across it not being referred to as a subject marker. Am I speaking bullshit, stating the obvious, wrong? What do you guys think?

Read "making sense of Japanese" if you want a good essay that explains the usage of は and が in terms you can understand. That's a solid book.

bennyb Wrote:Read "making sense of Japanese" if you want a good essay that explains the usage of は and が in terms you can understand. That's a solid book.

I have and it is. But the Rubin dude still says が is a subject marker which I don't think it is.

If it was just for emphasis then you would be able to say 「りんごが食べました。」

..and 誰は、何は、 etc wouldn't be wrong.

Don't focus on the names of grammatical elements, just pay attention to what they do. The names were created to describe English grammar and so they are only a very rough fit on distant language families.

Codexus Wrote:If it was just for emphasis then you would be able to say 「りんごが食べました。」

No I'm not saying it can replace other particles or it's a multi-use emphasis word like こそ or something. りんごを食べました doesn't change. I'm saying there is no need for a subject particle in Japanese. And if it didn't have it's emphasis nuance it don't think it would appear at all, ie.: 僕リンゴを食べました makes perfect sense.

Jarvik7 Wrote:..and 誰は、何は、 etc wouldn't be wrong.

They would be wrong because WH words require emphasis, ie. が. I'm not saying the が particle doesn't exist I'm saying it doesn't mark a subject.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:Well these are just my thoughts really. I'm only posting it because I've read a few explanation on GA and have never come across it not being referred to as a subject marker. Am I speaking bullshit, stating the obvious, wrong? What do you guys think?

I think you're just obviously wrong ;-). If you want to back up your argument you need to produce an example of a Japanese sentence which includes "X が" where X is *not* the subject of the verb.

(I have also an alternative line of argument which *defines* the subject of a Japanese sentence as 'the noun phrase which is marked by が'. I don't know if that holds water linguistically though :-))

The reason it tends to emphasise the thing it's attached to is because generally in the other cases the subject is left unstated.

Quote:I'm saying there is no need for a subject particle in Japanese.

This is like saying "there's no need for English pronouns to differ by case". It's entirely true in theory, but if you actually go around using exclusively "me" and "us" and never "I" and "we", then people will not think you have a particularly good grasp of the language...

pm215 Wrote:I think you're just obviously wrong ;-). If you want to back up your argument you need to produce an example of a Japanese sentence which includes "X が" where X is *not* the subject of the verb.

I think that would be impossible because the verb would presumably follow "X が", thus would be logically connected to it. I probably couldn't find you "X" that isn't the subject of the verb either.

I'm not saying "don't use が there's no point." I just don't think it's required in determining the subject. I see it as: 'subject (emphasiser) verb,' not 'noun (<this is a subject) verb.

One mistake you're making is in thinking that there is only one meaning for が. A quick glance at one of my monodicts shows over 7 distinct meanings unrelated to use as a subject marker. Also, は can be thought of as an "emphasis" particle too, but it acts in the opposite direction of が (the following words instead of the previous words). Finally, isn't a subject emphasized by it's very definition as a subject?

Indeed, が isn't required. Japanese sentences don't require subjects afterall.

Seriously though, don't make extraordinary linguistic theories when you're still learning the basics. Just trust established sources of information.

-edit to respond to your last post-

noun<emphasizer> verb still makes no sense. What is the relationship of the noun to the verb?

ex: bear eat.

Is the bear eating or being eaten?

BEEEAAAARRRR eat

still ambiguous

bear が eat

Ok, now we know the bear is doing the eating.

pm215 Wrote:

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:Well these are just my thoughts really. I'm only posting it because I've read a few explanation on GA and have never come across it not being referred to as a subject marker. Am I speaking bullshit, stating the obvious, wrong? What do you guys think?

I think you're just obviously wrong ;-). If you want to back up your argument you need to produce an example of a Japanese sentence which includes "X が" where X is *not* the subject of the verb.

彼が日本語がわかる。 (This sentence is uncommon on its own but perfectly natural if followed by から or ということ or something like that.)

Quote:(I have also an alternative line of argument which *defines* the subject of a Japanese sentence as 'the noun phrase which is marked by が'. I don't know if that holds water linguistically though :-))

There are a number of linguistic papers on the notion of subject in Japanese. There's nothing wrong in theory with that description, since you can define a word any way you want in linguistics as long as it's consistent. The problem is that if you're using "subject" in the Western sense, it can be expressed by no particle (or the "zero particle" as it's sometimes called), は, or の in subordinate clauses. One of the usual tests for determining whether something is a subject is to see if putting a 先生 in there can allow the verb to be made honorific. In the above example, if you say 私が先生がわかる (I understand the teacher), you cannot make this おわかりになる. Some people try to explain such a sentence as having "two subjects" but you'll never see this explanation in a linguistic paper because of this (and other reasons).

Virtua_Leaf is correct in some of what he's saying. It's only very recently in Japanese that が has become required by formal written language to mark subjects. For most of the history of Japanese, and still today in spoken language, the "null particle" (i.e. これ、なんですか？) is the normal way to "mark" a subject that has no special emphasis or contrast. Often (though not always) XがY has a meaning like "X is the only Y" or "X is the one thing that is described by Y".

Some specific things from the original post:

Quote:The role of subject is indicated by the noun in sentence initial position.

This is problematic because of sentences like この本は鈴木さんが書いた, in which the subject is not in sentence initial position.

Quote:containing the 'zero pronoun' subject, ie. 「私は(zero pronoun here, in this case "I")行きました」

I really dislike this explanation; I'm pretty sure it's from that Rubin book but I've never seen it anywhere else.

(Recently meaning ~600 years ago)

null particle is a way to refer to a particle that has been dropped. It isn't an invisible particle that is intentionally used for nuance.

これ食べる？ を dropped
京都行く? に dropped
これなに？ は dropped
これ欲しい が dropped

All of those dropped particles can be called null. There is no reduction of "emphasis".

Quote:This is problematic because of sentences like この本は鈴木さんが書いた, in which the subject is not in sentence initial position.

The subject is in initial position, of the noun phrase. の and the copula has been dropped, but in its completeness the sentence looks like ”この本は鈴木さんが書いたのです”. Replace the noun phrase with something else and you get この本は青いです. As you can see there is no subject in the main clause.

Much more recent than that. If you look at writing from even the late Edo period you don't find が used regularly to mark subjects.

Quote:null particle is a way to refer to a particle that has been dropped. It isn't an invisible particle that is intentionally used for nuance.

That's not correct. As just one example, I was talking to native speakers about some situations in the textbook we use. They were unanimous in saying that you would not ask a store clerk ペンがありますか？ They said the only possibilities are ペン、ありますか？ and ペンはありますか？ depending on the nuance that you want. This supports what our book says that が in this case would mean something like "Are pens the thing that you have?" which is not something you would ever need to ask.

(これなに？ and これはなに? do not mean the same thing. The former lacks the contrastive nuance of は. Same thing with これほしい and なにたべる？ The versions with the が and を put more focus and emphasis on the nouns than the versions with the null particle.)

Quote:The subject is in initial position, of the noun phrase. の and the copula has been dropped,

There's no justification for this. In order to say that something has been "dropped" you have to show a grammatical necessity and that the version with the dropped words has the same meaning and nuance.

Quote:but in its completeness the sentence looks like ”この本は鈴木さんが書いたのです”. Replace the noun phrase with something else and you get この本は青いです. As you can see there is no subject in the main clause.

But, この本は表紙が青いです is a fine sentence as well. I just asked a native Japanese speaker in my department who's studying Japanese linguistics (PhD level) and he said that ...が書いた and ...が書いたのです have different nuances and that you can't just explain the former as having the のです dropped.

By saying ペンある？ you are dropping は, not が.

If the conversation went something like

Aさん：鉛筆ある？
Bさん：いいえ
Aさん：じゃあ、ペンある？

Then you could say that ペンある was dropping が.

Grammar is context dependent.

Quote:(これなに？ and これはなに? do not mean the same thing. The former lacks the contrastive nuance of は. Same thing with これほしい and なにたべる？ The versions with the が and を put more focus and emphasis on the nouns than the versions with the null particle.)

Contrastive は is when you have 2 は in the same sentence. What exactly do you think これはなに? contrasting against? If you said これがなに, then you would be contrasting against something else you asked about earlier in the context.

There are slight nuance differences in those sentences, but that is caused by the casual the speech, not emphasis.

IceCream: Indeed you can drop just about any particle in casual speech. The more you drop the more ambiguously you speak though.

That thread is indeed good. I tried to dig it up actually but gave up after my first search. As you can see I'm not completely a proponent of the subject marker approach either, but が is way too complex to be described simply as "emphasis".

Jarvik7 Wrote:By saying ペンある？ you are dropping は, not が.

If the conversation went something like

Aさん：鉛筆ある？
Bさん：いいえ
Aさん：じゃあ、ペンある？

Then you could say that ペンある was dropping が.

In that case it's more likely that は would be used.

Quote:Contrastive は is when you have 2 は in the same sentence. What exactly do you think これはなに? contrasting against?

There's no way to tell without a context; it may just be introducing the item as a topic rather than showing contrast.

Quote:If you said これがなに, then you would be contrasting against something else you asked about earlier in the context.

I think you have this backwards. は does not require two to have contrastive meanings -- the topic and contrast meanings are very closely related (introducing a new topic is often the same thing as creating a contrast). The contrastive meaning of は comes entirely from the context, for instance:

A: スポーツ全然しないの？
B: いや、ゴルフは時々する。

A: すみません、コーヒーもお茶もありませんが...
B: じゃあ、紅茶はありますか？

I don't think you can use が for contrast; が would not work replaced for は in either of those sentences.

EDIT: Japanese: The Spoken Language contrasts the following phrases:
田中さん来ました (Tanaka-san came, no special emphasis)
田中さんが来ました (It is Tanaka-san who came, i.e. Tanaka-san is the person who came)
田中さんは来ました (Tanaka-san came [but maybe others didn't, or at least I'm not saying anything about others])

EDIT: Magamo's posts are great in that linked topic. I especially liked this:

Quote: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.

This is the way that JSL explains Japanese grammar, and I've never seen it anywhere else.

re: 鈴木が書いた本
The nuance difference is due to ambiguity with the のです explanatory sentence pattern. この本は鈴木さんが書いた本です is a lot more rigid of an expression, but it shows the same thing I was showing. 鈴木が書いた(本) is a subjective clause.
Translation: "As for this book, Suzuki wrote (it)". Aside from not making sense without the inferred tail end, you can further demonstrate that it is a subordinate clause by replacing が with の and it still makes sense.

re: contrast
Yes a single は can be contrastive, but it requires context to establish that contrast, like you did in your last post. By itself it is not contrastive.

Asking これなに？ and これはなに？ out of the blue both make sense and aren't contrasting anything. Sure you can generate a context which would make the latter contrastive (although you'd be more likely to say これは？ in that case), but that doesn't prove the point you were making.

Re: が as subject marker being a post-edo thing.
I'm not about to do a linguistic analysis of a representative corpus of Edo writings, but my dict says its use became common around the 1200-1600 C (中世).

I linked this in the thread icecream mentioned. http://stashbox.org/v/538359/Reading%2012.pdf

It is the standard accepted explanation of ga by Japanese linguists and every new theory is basically an attempt to improve/expand it. It's 40 years old and hasn't been unseated. It is also the explanation used in the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, what I studied in JP linguistics in uni, and what I follow.

Jarvik7 Wrote:re: 鈴木が書いた本
The nuance difference is due to ambiguity with the のです explanatory sentence pattern. の本は鈴木さんが書いた本です is a lot more rigid kind of expression, but it shows the same thing I was showing. 鈴木が書いた(本) is a subjective clause.
Translation "As for that book, Suzuki wrote (it)". Aside from not making sense without the inferred tail end, you can further demonstrate that it is a subordinate clause by replacing が with の and it still makes sense.

I'm not quite sure what this is showing; my point was that you have a sentence like この本は鈴木さんが書いた。 This is a verbal sentence (動詞文 as magamo said); it doesn't have anything dropped and can stand completely by itself. If you add things to it like 本です or のです it changes the meaning because it converts the second part into a subordinate clause and turns the whole thing into a nominal sentence (名詞文) instead, and the が loses its emphasis due to being inside the subordinate clause.

It's like the difference between "Tanaka-san is the one who wrote this book" and "This book is a book written by Tanaka-san" (or "is one written by...") in English.

Quote:Yes a single は can be contrastive, but it requires context to establish that contrast, like you did in your last post. By itself it is not contrastive.

When you're talking about the sentences in isolation, without context, you have to allow for the possibility that it could be either. While thematic wa and contrastive wa are closely related, they are different.

Quote:I linked this in the thread icecream mentioned. http://stashbox.org/v/538359/Reading%2012.pdf

I've read that before; I don't think it contradicts what I'm saying but I'll have to review it again later, I have to go now.

Re: the historical thing, I wasn't saying that が as a subject marker is recent, but that the idea that が is *required* to mark a subject in formal language is recent -- that is, the idea that something like これ、なんですか is simply a casual form of これがなんですか with the が "dropped". (が as a subject marker goes back a much longer way)

re: your point
I don't even know what your point is since you're not the OP and I don't think you've outright stated it (or I missed it). I was just contradicting individual examples.

re: context
That is why you need to give context if it is important to your point. Some constructs will imply context and that may be enough to make a point, but others, including "これなに？", do not in any way imply a context, even though if there WAS a certain context it could change the interpretation of は.

re: three types of sentences
Sentences can end in a copula, a verb, or an adjective (plus a final particle). It's not something that isn't written in any other books, just most books don't bother spelling it out. Yes the suzuki example is written ending with a verb, but that doesn't mean that there isn't stuff that has been dropped. --> "As for this book, Suzuki wrote". The way linguistics theory works (everything has a slot, so if something isn't there then it's "missing"), that has to be a "noun sentence" since that "it" is dropped. I'm not making it a noun sentence, it already was one!

re: historical
The dictionary said became common, not that it was invented (in the middle ages). Strictly speaking, it isn't required in modern text either, it is just a norm. Writing "これ欲しい" isn't grammatically incorrect because its on paper, it's just against the current norm. Modern Japanese isn't classical Japanese though. When が is missing now, it is because it is dropped, not because someone never saw fit to use it. Classical texts didn't just put nothing where we now put が, they marked the subject in different ways. Similarly, if one wanted to they could avoid use of は too and revert back to using conditional particles to express topics. You wouldn't be writing modern Japanese anymore though.

Thanks a lot for these responses and links everyone.

I'll only comment on one post for now since I'm way behind in studying.

Jarvik7 Wrote:noun<emphasizer> verb still makes no sense. What is the relationship of the noun to the verb?

ex: bear eat.

Is the bear eating or being eaten?

BEEEAAAARRRR eat

still ambiguous

bear が eat

Ok, now we know the bear is doing the eating.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Finally, isn't a subject emphasized by it's very definition as a subject?

...good point.

When I first read your bear sentence I thought 'No, if it's the bear being eaten then を would be used.' but according to my theory the GA doesn't indicate what part it's playing. I think I subconsciously knew the bear would be doing the eating if marked by GA but I wasn't acknowledging the fact that I knew that due to GA being placed there.

But in saying all of this you (naturally) don't know what function the word being marked by GA is going to have until you see the verb that follows. 「熊が食べられる」 being the flip side here.

So okay, noun GA transitive verb = noun does/did verb

But since the verb could be anything the subject could be doing anything too. The agent, the experiencer... But when 熊が is said to me that is "BEEEAAAARRRR ..."

Dissected, GA could have several definitions but they can't be swimming through my head every time I hear it.

As a side, something I noted the other day was the fact that what GA marks does/experiences something independently or by nature but is this true?

You should get a copy of "all about particles" and follow the examples for each of the different uses. It will clear everything up.

"Ga" turns out to be much more complicated than "Wa".

"熊食べる？"

I could be asking if you want to eat some bear, if you do eat bear, or if bears eat <something implied by the context>. Depending on what particle I dropped the meaning differs.

熊は食べる？ Do you eat bear?
熊を食べる？ You want some bear?
熊が食べる？ Do bears eat (them)?

The が, by establishing 熊 as the subject, shows that the bear is the one doing the verb. If it was simply like an emphasizing は, it would mean something like "No, do you eat BEEEEAAAARRRR?

I recommend the pdf I re-linked above. If it is too linguistics-y for you, then check out the entry in the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.

All about particles (iirc) and every other common grammar book I've seen has done an awful & ambiguous job of explaining wa/ga.

Dictionary of ____ Grammar is the best thing a Japanese learner can have. Buy all 3 volumes and pray for a 4th.

re: "question words must be emphasized"
何は etc are ungrammatical because a question word can never be a topic. Ex: "Today we are talking about whats". Also, examples of question words not being emphasized by が: "誰に見られた？" "誰でもいい" "何と言えばいいかな" "何かあった？" "何を食べた？ (BEEAAARRSSS)" WH words can take any particle BUT は.

*I wonder if anywhere in Nagoya has bear yakiniku...

Jarvik7 Wrote:"熊食べる？"

I could be asking if you want to eat some bear, if you do eat bear, or if bears eat <something implied by the context>. Depending on what particle I dropped the meaning differs.

熊は食べる？ Do you eat bear?
熊を食べる？ You want some bear?
熊が食べる？ Do bears eat (them)?

The が, by establishing 熊 as the subject, shows that the bear is the one doing the verb. If it was simply like an emphasizing は, it would mean something like "No, do you eat BEEEEAAAARRRR?

I recommend the pdf I re-linked above. If it is too linguistics-y for you, then check out the entry in the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.

All about particles and every other common grammar book I've seen has done an awful & ambiguous job of explaining wa/ga.

Dictionary of ____ Grammar is the best thing a Japanese learner can have. Buy all 3 volumes and pray for a 4th.


*I wonder if anywhere in Nagoya has bear yakiniku...

Waait a minute, I think I get this now. The GA indicates what it marks has a direct connection to the following verb (with added emphasis). You just don't know what kind of connection it is until you see it. Is this what it means to be a subject?

Anyway, I feel all this thinking on the subject has at least strengthened my grip on it. I think I can keep my mindset of 熊が = "BEEEEAAAARRRR ..." for now (or a more toned down version).

Thanks everyone for your help. I'll read these references with relish.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:"熊食べる？"

I could be asking if you want to eat some bear, if you do eat bear, or if bears eat <something implied by the context>. Depending on what particle I dropped the meaning differs.

熊は食べる？ Do you eat bear?
熊を食べる？ You want some bear?
熊が食べる？ Do bears eat (them)?

Some web links:

熊が食べる
http://nohoon-is-good.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2009-03-22-1
http://babasugi.blog62.fc2.com/blog-entry-476.html
http://coo.bg.cat-v.ne.jp/article/187633.html
http://bbs2.sekkaku.net/bbs/?id=inoino&mode=res&log=278
http://www.hkd.meti.go.jp/hokpk/earth_ra...4/news.htm
http://unkar.jp/read/science6.2ch.net/wild/1161506417

熊を食べる
http://piza.2ch.net/log2/hokkaido/kako/9...30576.html
http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/yellowcaprico...906160000/
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/zasshu159/56484612.html
http://gazoo.com/g-blog/TAIKI_MURA006/93...ticle.aspx


熊は食べる
http://nukohiroba.blog32.fc2.com/blog-entry-1505.html
http://ncode.syosetu.com/n3421c/5.html
http://ookumaneko.cocolog-nifty.com/blog...-ed96.html
http://meagueruu.exblog.jp/8011342/
http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/katsu-imamu..._2kuma.htm

I never get tired of these が vs は topics. ^_^
My 2 cents:

I used to get lost too when using these and other particles.
But the intuition of the usage of these particles does come natural after some time.

I'm not saying that reflecting about it is bad, but having a preconceived idea about it is very bad. Go on sentence by sentence basis and eventually, after a few hundreds of them, you'll have your own ideas about them.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:Waait a minute, I think I get this now. The GA indicates what it marks has a direct connection to the following verb (with added emphasis). You just don't know what kind of connection it is until you see it. Is this what it means to be a subject?

There is a limit to the connection it can have. Typically XがY shows that either X is doing Y, or that X is described by Y. Then XをY means that Y is operating on X. を is similar to が in that it shows a direct connection.

Jarvik:

Quote:Classical texts didn't just put nothing where we now put が, they marked the subject in different ways.

They pretty much used what we have now -- null particle, は, or occasionally の (が is used in some constructions as well). There are a couple of additional ways that are lost in modern Japanese (like をば) but for the most part it's not that different. The main reasons I don't think the null particle can be described as something being "dropped" is that it has different nuances, and there's a pretty much unbroken tradition of using the null particle when there's no emphasis, contrast, topic, etc. from the oldest written Japanese to casual conversation today. I don't know if this makes a difference in terms of understanding it for a learner, but linguists tend to be very cautious in using the term "dropped". The professors I have taken Japanese linguistics courses from have repeatedly emphasized to me that you shouldn't used "dropped" without very good justification.

Quote:Similarly, if one wanted to they could avoid use of は too and revert back to using conditional particles to express topics.

は has always been used with topic and contrast functions. ば and は are obviously related (and in older Japanese they would have been written the same although it's not clear when the pronunciation actually diverged). I'm not sure there's any period in the Japanese that we have extant where は and ば were not distinguished in meaning. There's certainly no period in extant written Japanese where は doesn't exist at all.