86810
The following is a sentence from the Japanese Wikipedia article about Berlin:

> ベルリンという名称が歴史的文書で最も古く遡れるのが1244年である。

I understand the sentence, but I would have expected 遡れるのは here instead of
遡れるのが, just like a prototypical cleft-sentence. Would the variant with のは also
work in this case? If so, how would the nuance be different?

Edit: I should mention that I ask because to my limited knowledge, this が
doesn't really seem to be for exhaustive listing here so that's what has left
me a bit puzzled.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-24T15:26:25.203
86802
2021-12-31T03:51:49.290
2021-05-24T15:34:52.663
33212
33212
question
は-and-が cleft-sentences
が vs. は in のが/のは...である cleft-sentence structure
I would use は there.

The current sentence with が sounds as if it was meant to answer a question
about what event characterized the year 1244, rather than stating a fact about
when the name Berlin was first used in historical documents. Since the year
1244 is not mentioned earlier in the article, it sounds odd.

It’s like saying:

> The earliest time the name Berlin can be traced back to in historical
> documents is (none other than that famous) 1244.

The English translation is admittedly awkward but I think you get the idea.

The sentence would have sounded more natural with は in place of が.

* * *

[EDIT]

Maybe I should have explained why the sentence with が sounds the way it does.
I think it is because the listener (reader) interprets only
ベルリンという名称が歴史的文書で最も古く遡れるの as new information and 1244年 as something they are
supposed to already know. The sentence sounds odd because the year 1244 is new
to the listener. The sentence with は, on the other hand, presents the whole
statement as new information.

Let’s look at this with simpler examples.

>   1. こちらが田中さんです。
>

>   2. こちらは田中さんです。
>

When Mr. Tanaka is introduced with the first sentence, the speaker has most
likely talked about him with the listener before. No such prior knowledge on
the listener’s part is assumed in the second sentence.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-25T01:05:05.083
86810
2021-05-25T04:44:05.927
2021-05-25T04:44:05.927
43676
43676
86802
answer
Although I know my [answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/86810/43676)
has been already accepted and I still find the sentence in question to be
_very_ odd in its own context, I have been reminded that が is not totally
unacceptable.

As part of my attempt to understand what is going on, I have come up with a
scenario where 〜が田中さんです doesn’t necessarily sound weird to people who have
never heard of him.

Suppose someone is introducing a sports team or something, and that person
says:

> （このチームは）キャプテンが田中さんです。

This wouldn’t sound particularly odd to me even if I hadn’t heard of Tanaka-
san before. I would only expect something like 副キャプテンが山下さんです to follow.

I think キャプテン here can be seen as one of a number of aspects of the topic,
which in this case is the team Tanaka-san is the captain of, and therefore,
the above sentence can be understood as describing something (チーム) focusing on
a particular aspect of it (キャプテン). The particle が may be used to exclude other
aspects (e.g. 副キャプテン) for better focus. I cannot explain why, but I feel the
aspect to be focused with が has to be picked from a limited set, rather than
an open-ended one.

So, if you can see ベルリンという名称が歴史的文書で最も古く遡れるの as the first of a number of
aspects of Berlin’s history to be discussed in that context, the sentence in
question might not sound too odd to you. This is difficult for me because I
cannot find anything that would correspond to 副キャプテン in the subsequent part of
the history section.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-25T12:04:24.067
86817
2021-12-31T03:51:49.290
2021-12-31T03:51:49.290
43676
43676
86802
answer