Saturday, November 23, 2019

grammar - Can we have two thematic は particles in a sentence?



Good afternoon all,


From what I understand, there are two types of は-particle:




  1. The thematic-は (topic-marker) which is used to introduce things into the universe of discourse.




  2. The contrastive-は.





jkerian states that:



There can be only one thematic は in a sentence. If you see a second one, the second is certainly contrastive, and the first might be. (source)



But Derek states that:



The [non-first] は often adds a hint of comparison or contrast. (source)



These two sentences are contradictory.


Assuming that jkerian is right, that there is only one thematic は in a sentence, so the non-first は will always add a hint of comparison / contrast, which contradicts what Derek said.



Assuming that Derek is right, that it is possible for the non-first は not to add any hints of contrast / comparison, then it suggests that we can now have more than one thematic は in a sentence, which contradicts what jkerian said.


So basically I was wondering who is right? Is it possible to have two は-particles in a sentence, both of them not having any comparative / contrastive hints?




No comments:

Post a Comment

digital communications - Understanding the Matched Filter

I have a question about matched filtering. Does the matched filter maximise the SNR at the moment of decision only? As far as I understand, ...