9549
First, some real-world examples of " _< 名詞>_、それは _< 名詞句>_。" :

>   * イノセンス、それはいのち (catchphrase for the movie イノセンス)
>   * リゾートホテル、それは[極上]{ごくじょう}のサービスに[心]{こころ}[満]{み}たされる[空間]{くうかん} (catchphrase
> used by a certain resort hotel)
>   * 歓{よろこ}び。それはBMW。 (catchphrase for the Japanese market used by BMW)
>

Is it correct to say that these are formed by "left dislocation" and
"体言止{たいげんど}め"?

For instance, the underlying sentence of the first example, I think, is

> イノセンスはいのちだ

"Dislocation" is a grammatical term describing a sentence structure in which
one constituent is taken out of its normal place of occurrence, either to the
left side or the right side. The dislocated element's original place is often
occupied by a pronoun. (Heavily drawn from
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dislocation_%28syntax%29).) For
example, "These things, they take time."

Applying left dislocation turns the sentence into:

> イノセンス、それはいのちだ

["体言止め"](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BF%AE%E8%BE%9E%E6%8A%80%E6%B3%95#.E4.BD.93.E8.A8.80.E6.AD.A2.E3.82.81)
is a figure of speech in which a sentence is terminated by a noun or a noun
phrase.

> イノセンス、それはいのち

All seem nice and well, but I'm not sure because I couldn't find any source
talking about this construct in any way. Is the hypothesis correct, or am I
missing something? Are there other possibilities?

Edit:

I did find [this chiebukuro
Q&A](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1243139137)
which states the English equivalent of the construct is "extraposition." It
lists examples like "The demands, restrictions, pressure, fatigue, ― they
spoiled the fun." Inferring from [this comment to a Language Log
entry](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=629#comment-10051), this type
of extraposition is now classified as left dislocation.

So...whatever the grammatical term is, there's one supporting view that a
transformation is in the work here which extracts the topic and places it
outside the normal sentence structure.
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2012-11-11T11:05:48.053
9406
2013-06-06T13:44:17.627
2013-06-06T13:44:17.627
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question
grammar
How to make sense of this construct - "<名詞>、それは<名詞句>"
For the following sentence:

> イノセンス、それはいのち。

This sentence divided in [文節]{ぶんせつ} will be:

  * [独立語]{どくりつご}: イノセンス
  * [主語]{しゅご}: それは
  * [述語]{じゅつご}: いのち

So イノセンス will be a 独立語.

And to be more precise, 独立語 are divided in 4 categories:

  * [感動]{かんどう} (eg: **おお** 、びっくりした。)
  * [呼]{よ}びかけ (eg: **おい** 、行かないでください。)
  * [応対]{おうたい} (eg: **はい** 、そうです。)
  * [提示]{ていじ} (eg: **イノセンス** 、それはいのち。)

So in this case イノセンス will be a [提示独立語]{ていじどくりつご}.

提示独立語 can be easily confused with the 主語 but they are not, most of the time
they will be followed by a [指示語]{しじご} like 'それは'.

独立語 are weakly tied to other 文節 and can be separated in different sentence
like in your BMW example.

The main purpose of this construction is to put emphasis on the topic. That
explains why it is mainly used for advertising and speechs.

I suppose it can assimilated to English constructions like:

> Freedom! It is what we are fighting for.

体言止め seems a little different regarding the Wikipedia page you linked, it is
about inverting the order of 主語 and 述語 and is used when there is a verb or an
adjective in the sentence.

So inspired by the example sentence, 'いのちであるイノセンス。' will be a 体言止め (normal
sentence being 'いのちはイノセンスです。').
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2012-11-23T06:15:17.210
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9406
answer