Topic marker

A topic marker is a grammatical particle used to mark the topic of a sentence. It is found in Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Quechua, Ryukyuan, Imonda and to a limited extent Classical Chinese. It often overlaps with the subject of a sentence, causing confusion for learners, as most other languages lack it. It differs from a subject in that it puts more emphasis on the item and can be used with words in other roles as well. Thus, the subject and the object are not always the topic and comment but often have straightforward relationships to them.