Paper short abstract:

The distinction between "wa" and "ga" is seen as difficult. In this presentation, I will consider the appropriate timing of introducing the terms and concepts of "topic" and "subject" in order to make a proper description that leads to the appropriate use of "wa" and “ga”.

Paper long abstract:

The distinction between "wa" and "ga" is seen as difficult by both teachers and learners of Japanese, but I argued that it is not difficult regardless of native language differences if it is introduced step by step using appropriate grammatical terminology (Iori 2020).

"Wa" is "topic" and "subject" at the same time when whose case is nominative (marked with “ga”) but it is "topic" but not "subject" when whose case is accusative (marked with “o”) (Mikami 1960).

　(1) Taro wa sono hon o kai-ta. (Taro wrote that book.) (Topic & subject)

　　　　　TOP that book ACC write-PST

　(2) Sono hon wa Taro ga kai-ta. ((Lit.) The book, Taro wrote it.) (Topic but not subject)

NOM

(3) Hanako ni wa Taro ga sono ken o renraku-si-ta. (Topic, co-occurring with "ni")

to case contact-do-PST

((Lit.) To Hanako, Taro contacted about it.)

　In Japanese, it is natural that “topic” rather than “subject” continues from sentence to sentence in a text, which is different from languages such as English, where it is natural that "subject", which is typically an agent, continues (note that Taro in the second sentence of (4) and (5) is the "theme" and not the "agent").

　(4) Taroi wa ii otoko da. {??Minna ga (φi o) aisi-tei-ru./○(φi wa)Minna ni aisa-re-tei-ru.}

nice guy be everyone love-DUR-PRS by love-PASS

(Taro is a nice guy.) { Everyone loves him. / He is loved by everyone}.

　(5) Taro is a nice guy. {○Everyone loves him. / ??He is loved by everyone.}

From the above, it can be said that it is the use of "wa" that is more difficult than the distinction between "wa" and "ga". In this presentation, I will consider the appropriate timing of introducing the terms and concepts of "topic" and "subject" in order to distinguish the use of "wa" and "ga" and to make a proper description that leads to the appropriate use of "wa" based on the result of a corpus research and of my practice in teaching Japanese.

The originality of this presentation is that it theoretically and empirically discusses the appropriate introduction method for grammatical items related to "wa".

Abbreviations:

ACC: accusative, DUR: durative, NOM: nominative, PASS: passive, PRS: present, PST: past, TOP: topic

Bibliography

Iori, Isao. 2020. Wa to ga no tukaiwake o gakusyuusya ni tutaeru kokoromi: “Syugo” ni motozuku apurooti,”(“An essay to convey to Japanese language learners the essential parts of the distinction between wa and ga in Japanese : An approach based on the notion “subject””), Gengo Bunka. 57, 25-41, Hitotsubashi University.

Mikami, Akira. 1960. Zou wa han ga nagai. (Elephants have long noses.) Kurosio Publishers.