A Semantic Analysis of the Topic Particles in Korean and Japanese

Abstract

The Korean particles –nun(는) and -un(은) and the Japanese particle –wa(は) are one of the most elusive and deceptive problems in the languages respectively. They a re also characteristic features of the two languages differing from English and some other languages. The Japanese particle and the Korean -nun/ un resemble each other in many respects. This is an at tempt to find out the semantic features of the two and show by comparison how they resemble each other. It will also reveal the grammatical characteristics of those particles because our ana lysis will make use of syntactic devices though grammar is not our main concern. In addition, to the extent that the particles are characteristics of the languages, the study will show a new direction possible in the study of the two languages.