A topic marker is a grammatical particle used to mark the topic of a sentence. It is found in Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, Imonda, and, to a limited extent, Classical Chinese. It often overlaps with the subject of a sentence, causing confusion for learners, as most other languages lack it. It differs from a subject in that it puts more emphasis on the item and can be used with words in other roles as well.
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Japanese: は
The topic marker is one of many Japanese particles. It is written with the hiragana は, which is normally pronounced ha, but when used as a particle is pronounced wa. It is placed after whatever is to be marked as the topic. 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. Other particles (for example: に, と, or で) are not replaced, and は is placed after them.
The English phrase "as for" is often used to convey the connotation of は, although in many cases this sounds unnatural when used in English. It does, however, convey some senses of the particle, one of which is to mark changing topics. If a person was speaking about someone else and then switched to referring to him or herself, they should say 私は (watashi wa), "as for me...". After that, it wouldn't be necessary to mention again that they were speaking about themselves.
Example
In the following example, "car" (車, kuruma) is the subject, and it is marked as the topic. The が that would normally be there to mark the subject has been replaced by は. The topic normally goes at the beginning of the clause.
Korean: 는/은
In Korean, 는 (neun) and 은 (eun) function similarly to the Japanese topic marker. 는 (neun) is used after words that end in a vowel and 은 (eun) is used after words that end in a consonant.
Classical Chinese: 者 (Zhě)
Zhě is similar to the Japanese wa, but is used sporadically in Classical Chinese and only when an author wants to emphasize the topic. Zhě is usually omitted, unlike in Japanese where a topic marker is generally required. Please note that although Zhě can be used as a suffix attached to a verb or adjective, transforming the verb or adjective into a noun, as a topic marker, its grammatical function is fundamentally different from that of a suffix and therefore cannot be viewed as a suffix.
As an example, consider the sentence "陈胜者，阳城人也" (Chénshèng zhě, yángchéng rén yě), a famous sentence from the Records of the Grand Historian:
Please note that 者, as well as the sentence of "Chénshèng zhě, yángchéng rén yě," is romanized here according to modern Mandarin pronunciations. It is unclear how 者 and the entire sentence would have been pronounced 2,000 years ago (and what the proper romanization should have been).
Note: The structure of this sentence <zhě + yě> is much more similar to the Japanese <wa + desu> structure than to modern Chinese, where topic markers have been completely lost and are not used anywhere. As the following,
Note: <shì> can be omitted in some occasions.