From: hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga)
Subject: Re: Cases in Japanese (Was: Re: THE QUICK AND DIRTY ...)
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 12:49:44 GMT

# Sorry for the late reply.

First I have to clarify (and correct) myself on some points.
I was not talking about the function of "wa" itself,
but how (and whether) it can be literally transferred to another language
(English, that is).
In that, I made a sloppy use of the word "case".  It was more in a
semantic sense, about the "case roles" (as in case grammar) a noun
(or rather, noun+particle) serves in the sentence (against the main verb).
The reference to case categories like nominative was admittedly misleading.
As for "wa", it is standardly classified as a kakari-joshi and not
as one of the "case" particles (kaku-joshi); although it is possible to 
think of the semantic role it conveys.

In article <2594@usna.NAVY.MIL> wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>) writes:
>1.  I suggest a better sentence to play with than `Boku wa unagi da' is
>`Sakana wa unagi ga ii.'  For this one, it's difficult to see any other
>particle that could replace `wa'.  If you must say that `wa' indicates a
>case, I would say that, rather than indicating nominative case, 'wa' indicates
>something like `topical' case, which has no close equivalent in European
>languages.

Assuming "you" addresses me --
your conclusion, actually, is supportive of my claim (that literal
translation is difficult/impossible).
And although I have claimed that "wa" generally carries the nominative
case (in the above sense: of which I find nothing wrong), I have never
claimed that it is exclusively so, and even put in a caveat to that effect.
Also, I don't see the point (or significance) of replacing the sentence
to deal with the issue at hand.

>2.  `Wa' differs from `ga', `o', `ni', `e', etc., in that it need not follow
>a noun.  `Waruku wa nai.'  Same for `mo'.

This, however, is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
(And btw, this is why "wa" is not classified as a case particle.)

>3.  The topic specified by `wa'  can have its case specified by including
>another particle: `niwa', `ewa', etc.  The catch:  `gawa' and `owa' always
>contract back to just `wa.'  Same for `mo.'

I don't get the point (or rather, the relevance) of this.
And can you provide an example that can be characterized as "owa"?

To succinctly focus on the issue, I'll claim that "boku wa unagi da"
and "boku niwa unagi da" are different sentences, i.e. have different
connotations.

>4.  I don't find sentences with `wa' difficult to translate literally into
>English.  `Boku wa unagi da.' = `As for me, it's eel.'  `Sakana wa unagi
>ga ii.' = `As for fish, eel is good.'

I may be a bit stringent on what counts as a "literal" translation.
And it is the kind of intuitive "guts" feeling of a native speaker
that's troubling me, so it's difficult to explain.
Let's see.  I'll have less trouble admitting "As for me, [it's] eel" as
a literal translation for "boku niwa unagi da".
The "as for" construct, on the other hand, is not a universal means
for translating "wa".  For example, translating "boku wa kimi ga suki da"
as "As for me, I like you" is not at all becoming -- a plain "I like you"
is more fitting.  "Boku wa unagi da" lurks somewhat inbetween these two
(I'll try a better explanation if I can think of one).
Seen from the other side, the use of "it" as an impersonal subject
as in "it is raining" is difficult or impossible to literally translate
into Japanese.  I sense a similar situation in our present sentence
as well, as suggested in my previous article.

BTW: does "As for fish, eel is good." count as a proper or good
English sentence?

-Yuzuru Hiraga
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan