From: "Marcus Smith"
> >> There is also the noun koto "fact" which often appears at the end of a
> >> sentence, but that has a purely grammatical function now, as far as I
can
> >> tell.
> >
> >Interesting. What is that function?
>
> Nominalizing mostly, but sometimes I can't figure our why a particular
clause
> needed to be nominalized, so there could be another function. The first
> sentence is a clear nominalizing context. The second is odd.
>
> [Mori-san wa uta-o utatta] koto-ga arimasu.
> name TOP song-OBJ sang KOTO-SUBJ exists
> "Mr Mori has sung a song before."
>
> [Boku no syumi wa kitte-o atumeru] koto desu
> I POSS hobby TOP stamp-OBJ collect KOTO be.
> "My hobby is collecting stamps."
>
> These can't be relative clauses because the topic marker -wa cannot be
used in
> an embedded clause. But I think they were historically derived from
relatives
> because translating them as one makes sense. "The fact that Mr. Mori sang
a
> song exists" and "My hobby is the fact that (I) collect stamps." Perhaps
a
> bit
> odd, but arguable.
What if you did it this way:
[Morisan wa] [uta o utatta koto ga] arimasu.
(As for) Mr. Mori, there is an instance/fact that he sang a song. (rendering
the usual translation:)
Mr. Mori has sung a song.
[Boku no syumi wa][kitte o atumeru koto] desu.
(As for) my hobby, it is the affair/event/thing/fact that I collect stamps.
As desu is a copula, and atumeru is a verb (and Japanese doesn't have
Western style gerunds), you've got to nominalize; desu links the two nouns
syumi and koto since it can't link syumi and atumeru. I would say the second
elements I've bracketed are relative clauses while the first are, as you
noted, the topics of the sentence.
Kou