ルーパーズ ♾ Chapter 4 (Visual Novel Book Club)

I’m gonna be honest, I might be wrong in my answers to your questions (and I only answered those I felt I had some answer to give), so I hope someone more knowledgeable can confirm or deny later. (I don’t trust my grammar knowledge enough.) :sweat_smile:

Answers (hopefully)

I thought this was the contrasting は. I thought that because there is another は in the second part of the sentence. Somehow contrasting that it looks human, but in this world, it is only a shadow of (human) existence. But the second は maybe should be in a different spot if that is the case…

So I am now thinking it is just the emphasizing kinda use of は that I often see. It is quite often injected between verb(てform) + いる as a kind of emphasis. At least that is how I think of it, don’t know the technical term nor the exact grammar meaning.

Hopefully someone else can give a more precise answer. :bowing_woman:
I decided to do the smart thing and check the grammar dictionaries I own, because why not use them when I own them, and I found something! (And it turns out I was right about a usage, hurray!)

In A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar (ADoIJG), it has an entry for は that it describes as follows:

a particle which emphatically affirms or negates the proposition represented by the preceding verbal and other related elements

So it is emphasizing that it looks/behaves/is (not sure how to translate the する here) in the shape of a human, but [the rest of the sentence].

か doesn’t necessarily add doubt so much as some uncertainty. And in many cases, it can be used more like a softening agent. Not making it unclear or doubtful exactly, but just making the statement/sentence less strict/severe. Or something. I don’t know how to put it.

I don’t know what the technical name of the は is here, but it acts as a kind of emphasis. I guess it is potentially just the topic marker function. (Like it is probably doing in your first question.)

The only other thing it could be (which I can’t answer right now) is that it could be contrasting, if that makes sense with the previous or following sentence. But I think it is more likely the first thing I said.

However, I’m pretty sure it isn’t usually called emphasis. But that is kinda what I call it in my head right now.
I think the は here is acting the same (as your first question), but my trusty ADoIJG doesn’t actually mention the case of たり. It mentions masu form, te-form, ku form of i-adj, and de/te-form of na-adj. And I don’t know what たり actually is. So I can’t say for sure, but I think it is emphasizing that the ringing did not stop.

It is the casual quotation marker. So more like “Oi, I told you not to push me!”

I would say this is basically the same as about. A bit of uncertainty. I do believe there is someone on the forum (I can’t remember who right now), who likes to call か the uncertainty marker rather than the questioning marker, because it often adds uncertainty either a little or to the degree of making it a question. (And I guess the translation doubt would fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.) I think for this use it is very much on the lighter side, meaning to tends to be more of a softener of the sentence rather than adding true uncertainty/doubt.

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grammar stuff

I don’t remember when exactly that’s said but yeah I think that’s what it’s going for, maybe in a more general sense? Like how she’s gone back and forth with trying to convince herself nothing happened, it’s just a dream, there’s no way she hit her that hard, etc.

My chaotic answer is maybe it is implying there was a reunion with someone else :eyes: like 探し女 perhaps? Because yeah it doesn’t really make sense to use や there otherwise, it definitely gives the feeling there’s something they’re not telling us.

I agree with @MissDagger that the は + verb stuff there is just emphasis, not really anything specific. I also think the かのよう stuff is less about doubt per se, and more just an uncertain vibe, yeah. Like Hilda doesn’t know that she was hearing voices the whole time she was asleep, she just feels like that’s what happened. かのよう generally gives me “as if” kinda vibes, like “it was as if she heard the same cursed voice over and over the whole time she was sleeping” or something, if that makes sense!

Yeah it’s basically saying that throwing the phone didn’t make the ringing stop, or anything else that she may have wanted to happen. And then that emphasis は back again :laughing:

I think it’s actually more emphasizing the しない, the fact that nothing happened. は throws the emphasis on whatever it is you’re saying about the topic so it’s more the feeling of like “the ringing stopping, whatever else you’re talking about, that didn’t happen” if that makes sense!

Anyway I hope any of that helps! And if I’m wrong please tell me, I make no guarantees :joy:

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You’re right. I just doubled checked the dictionary and it is kinda formulated weird (to me). It is emphasizing the affirmation or the negation of what precedes the は. So it does indeed emphasize that it did not stop ringing (and other things).

The language used for grammar stuff when it is trying to be concise is confusing. (Although I do wonder how often it would actually make a difference which side the emphasis fell, enough to make it wrong, if you get what I mean.)

Anyway, I’m glad someone else agreed with my takes. Maybe I’ve managed to absorb something from reading all the grammar discussions here on the forum (which I feel is where I am learning the finer points of grammar, or the most simplistic (but still correct) ways to view grammar).

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Thanks for the answers, you two!

Reply to the answers

Oooh, so it is! Good call on looking up は; I only looked for ては patterns. Thanks!

I don’t think he told her that before while we were watching. Was that another time then? Or can it be something like “I’m telling you”? (Sadly, this is really hard to google… all results are for the て-form of なる.)

Oh, sorry, I should’ve provided context for the sentences. This happens right after killing her father. Here are the surrounding sentences:

I guess I’ll just have to accept that the sentence says that we can see on her face that she is trying to be brave, even though I really don’t sense that from her voice or her sentences.

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I don’t have a great answer, but just want to say I’ve seen って used a lot in other works too at the end of a statement, in these sorts of times where it doesn’t really make sense as a quote. I wish I had more than contextless short jisho definitions, but there is " indicates certainty, insistence, emphasis etc." under て. That’s the only seemingly fitting way I’ve found to mentally frame it, because they’re usually sort of… heated sentences.

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I thought that was Leona saying that to Hilda (I had the chapters mixed up); that is why I said quotation because I’m pretty sure that Leona had said that to Hilda earlier (or similar enough anyway). Maybe it would be good to actually add the info on who is saying something when you quote so it is easier to help.

って is an extremely versatile thing. So without context, giving the wrong definition is way too easy. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, will do!

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