WA. 77
IF 125. A consideration of the foregoing examples, and indeed of those which any page of Japanese affords, will convince the student that wa is not as, some European writers have erroneously imagined, a sign of the nomina- tive case. The most that can be said is that the word followed by wa must, in not a few instances, be rendered by a nominative in English ; but it is never a nominative properly so-called in the Japanese construction. The nearest approach made by the Colloquial Japanese language to the possession of a nominative particle is in the particle ga (see p. 57) ; but even this, as has been there explained, originally meant " of," that is to say was genitive rather than nominative.
11 126. Europeans often find it hard to decide between the choice of wa and ga ; and it is true that two Japanese phrases, one with wa, the other with ga, must often be rendered by the same English words. There is, however, a difference of stress. When ga is used in any such phrase, we must emphasise the subject in the English translation ; when wa is used, we must emphasise the predicate. The Japanese themselves, as stated on page 17, are not much given to the use of such emphasis. Thus Kore ga ii means " This is good ; " whereas Kore wa ii means " This is good." The distinction flows naturally from the original force of the two particles, Kore ga ii being properly " The goodness of this," while Kore wa ii is properly " As for this, it is good."
To take another example. If you are expecting your Japanese teacher, the servant will inform you of his arrival by saying Sensei wa miemashita, " The teacher has come " (lit. appeared). The etymological sense is, " As for the teacher, he has come." But should the same
