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For full context:
<https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/web_tokushu/2018_0202.html?utm_int=news_contents_news-
closeup_002>

The sentence in question:
山田さんによると、八王子は何度か大規模な火災に見舞われ、戦時中は大規模な空襲も受けたことから、古い資料なども **多くは**
残っていないということで、江戸時代の隕石を探すのは容易ではないと話していました。

My attempt at translation: "According to Mr.Yamada, Concerning Hachioji, He
said that because it was struck with large scale fires several times and also
suffered air raids during war, there not being left many old documents, the
search for a meteorite from the edo area won't be simple."

I really have no idea why this は in 多くは (bold) is at this very position. I
also have no idea why it has to exist in this phrase at all, and therefore I
also don't know what it does and just translated the sentence as if it wasn't
there xD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-04T19:14:04.310
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2018-02-05T00:05:18.220
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question
grammar particle-は
Why is this は positioned like that here?
多くは is very commonly used to refer to "most of something". The typical usage
is noun+の多くは, and 多く serves as a noun here. That part of sentence translates
to "Most of the old documents (and alike) are destroyed, so ..."
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-04T19:27:43.667
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answer
多く here is an adverb and は after it stands for partial negation:"not many, if
any".

Edit: You can interpret 多く as a noun as well. In this case, the sentence
structure would be a double subject one.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-04T23:49:58.987
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2018-02-05T00:05:18.220
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answer