Talk:Topic marker

Somalian
I read, Somalian language has it too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polishboy2008 (talk • contribs) 14:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Latin -ne is not a topic marker
I speak both Japanese and Latin (albeit to a limited extent for either one), I disagree that the Latin particle -ne is analogous in any significant way to the Japanese particle は. I can see where the idea comes from, but they are not that similar in actual usage. For one thing, -ne attaches very often to verbs. In Japanese, a verb cannot be the topic. Neither can an adjective. All four of the Latin sentences given as examples use a verb or adjective as the so-called topic! You could turn a verb into a noun and make that the topic, but that wouldn't be the same thing at all. But even if we consider only nouns, I think they are not that similar. For example, this might be a typical exchange in Latin: "Malumne habet Quintus?" "Minime, habet pirum." ("Is it an apple Quintus has?" "No, he has a pear.") The word malum "apple" takes -ne to emphasize the apple as opposed to some other thing. Japanese does not use は this way. I believe the same exchange in Japanese would be "Quintus wa ringo o motteiru?" "Iie, pea o motteiru." Here the topic is Quintus, not ringo "apple". Making "ringo" the topic would be possible, but it would not serve the same purpose as in the Latin exchange (it would be more like "The apple, does Quintus have it?"). There is surely some overlap in usage between Japanese は and Latin -ne, but I think such overlap is coincidental rather than indicative of a fundamental connection. Three of the four Latin sentences were variations of the same sentence, "topicalizing" a different word of the same sentence each time. However, as I stated before, none of these three variations would be possible in Japanese. Thus I think it is evident that the -ne is doing something completely different in Latin from what は does in Japanese. Since I don't think they serve the same purpose, I don't think they should be called the same thing, and so I believe the Latin examples do not belong here. - furrykef (Talk at me) 14:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Japanese "Wa" doesn't always replace ga/wo
"If what is to be the topic would have had が (ga), the subject marker, or を ((w)o), the direct object marker, as its particle, those are replaced by は."

This is not always true. You can have a relative clause that modifies the topic, e.g.: "Nihongo ga hanaseru hito ha doko desu ka?" = "Where are the people that can speak Japanese?" Also, sometimes, the topic marker ha is not even necessary. For example, you'll hear: "Ame ga furu," "Nani ga tabetai ka?" or "Biiru wo nomu?"

Awkko808 (talk) 04:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC) Awkko808


 * I think you're misunderstanding. None of your last three examples have a topic. If you did make those nouns the topic, however, you would replace が and を with は. - furrykef (Talk at me) 22:19, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Just removed the example sentence, Now the car is new, as it is gibberish and thus does a very poor job at explaining what is happening. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richypops (talk • contribs) 13:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

It differs from a subject in that it puts more emphasis on the item
In Japanese, this is not exactly true. In fact, it's verging on the opposite of true.

私が見た = It is *I* who saw it. Emphasis is on me/I. 私はみた = As for me, saw it. Emphasis is on what I *did*.

There is something of a ring of truth about the line, though. One of the uses of the topic marker in Japanese is as a contrastive marker. For example, to talk about liking (or being pleasing to one, to be more accurate), Japanese usually uses the が particle, for example:

私は寿司が好き. Literally: As for me, sushi is pleasing. Translation: I like sushi.

However, when used in its contrastive role, the topic marker は takes over the duty of が：

刺身は好きじゃないけど、寿司は大好き. Translation: While I don't like sashimi, I love sushi. Or, more literally: singling out sashimi for the sake of comparison, it's not pleasing to me, but sushi, on the other hand, is very pleasing to me.

This is the only sense in which the thing preceding は has more emphasis put on it, but this is by far the less common case, so saying that は "puts emphasis on the item" is very misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.11.65.153 (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Quechua
The article on Quechua mentions that it has a topic marker -qa. Further research needed for this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okoyos (talk • contribs) 03:29, 17 September 2019 (UTC)