I came across a long sentence in a story, which I have googled around and
struggled for a couple of days. Here is what it reads:

> この頃わかってきたのだが、旅人の中には用心のためか、こちらの挨拶に頷くぐらいしか、挨拶を返さないものが少なくない。

My rough translation would be:

> At this time, you come to understand a fact that, in among the travelers,
> for the sake of precaution, they only return our greetings so much with a
> nod, and quite a few simply do not return greetings at all.

I’m not sure if I have got the idea right. But what haunting me most is the
“が” in the first phrase この頃わかってきたのだが. What is “が” doing here for? There is no
contradictory sense in the sentence. I mean, there is no need for “が” to
function as a button to remind the readers that something contradictory is
coming up.

Besides, I discovered that in some subjunctive sentences, they put a “が” at
the end too, such as:

> もし私が鳥ならば、君のところへ飛んで行けるのだが.

(If I were a bird, I would fly to you.)

There you go, “が” is haunting again.

Please enlighten me. Thank you.
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2016-04-11T11:36:57.660
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2020-12-29T18:06:35.400
2020-12-29T18:06:35.400
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question
grammar particle-が
Please enlighten me about a haunting "が”
I don't have enough reputation yet to comment, so I'm going to post it here.
:)

The linked thread explains the meaning of the が very well.

When looking at your translation, I noticed that you made two seperate
sentences out of: こちらの挨拶に頷くぐらいしか、挨拶を返さないものが少なくない

しか and 挨拶を返さない are one grammatical construction and belong together (I'm not
really sure why there is a coma anyway): しか + negative verb > "only, just"

I would probably translate the sentence like this:

What I understood from that time, is that there are a lot of people among
travelers, maybe for the sake of precaution, who returned our greetings only
with a nod.
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2016-04-11T12:40:01.060
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2016-04-11T12:40:01.060
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answer