Bucko said:
the use of the 'wa' particle...for...'there is an apple' she told us to say 'soko ni wa ringo wa arimasu'...Is someone able to give me an explanation of why we were told to put two 'wa's in the sentence?
Using the grammar books I have, this is the best sense I can make of it. The particle -wa can indicate one of three things; 1) subject, 2) referent object, and 3) emphasis (in place of -ga and -o)
The non-emphatic place marker for soko is -ni.
The non-emphatic general subject maker for ringo with the verb of existence aru- is -ga.
Hence the standard way to say "There is an apple" is;
"soko
ni ringo
ga arimasu."
As Suomo pointed out, the place marker -ni with the referent indicator -wa will produce the compound particle -niwa to mean "only there" or "as for that place, and nowhere else." This will result in "As for that place, there is an apple";
"soko
ni wa ringo
ga arimasu."
The emphatic particular subject marker for ringo with the verb of existence aru- is -wa, giving "ringo wa" to mean "only apple(s), but nothing else" or "as for apples, for sure, but as for others, I can't say for sure."
The two distinctions are productive rules in Japanese that convey the speaker's sense of certainty and discrimination. Hence your instructors sample sentence should have the sense of "There is surely an apple(s); but I can't say anything else."
"ringo
wa arimasu"
Since the use of -wa as a referent indicator and subject marker can be confusing when used twice in a sentence. (why two emphases ? why two subjects ?) But universal logic says that could not be the case. That is why grammar books say
"When the referent indicator -wa is used, the (following) subject is always indicated by -ga", and that "the combination 'noun+wa' usually precedes the subject to define the topic or referent of the speech at first."
If this rule is an accurate description of standard Japanese, then there are only two possibilities that could have caused your instructor's sentence.
1) She is excercising a higher degree of discrimination in her idiosyncratic language, disregarding the avoidance of double -wa rule.
2) The grammar rule only says so to indicate the relative frequency, meaning the unique combination is not impossible, but occurrs only rarely for extreme distinction.
"soko
ni wa ringo
wa arimasu."
"As for that place (can't say for other places), there is surely an apple(s); (can't say for sure there is anything else)."
Although it doesn't have direct bearing on Japanese, it is interesting to note that Mandarin, Manchu, and Korean share this strange phenomenon of one sentence apparently having two subjects. The first is actually the topic, the second the subject of the predicate clause. This could be one example of language convergence in NE Asia.
