4

I am trying to understand the grammar behind "[noun]って".

I looked up some examples on space alc web, and 人って seems to mean people, someone, or some person. I have seen other examples of the [noun]って usage, so I guess its common but probably I am missing something.

Earthliŋ
  • 47,707
  • 9
  • 125
  • 198
user3169
  • 1,061
  • 1
  • 12
  • 18
  • 1
    Most likely the quotation particle って, which can behave a lot like the topic marker in many cases. The specific context would be useful to answer. – Darius Jahandarie Jul 10 '13 at 23:03

1 Answers1

13

って is a colloquial particle and has two main functions.

  1. Being used as a colloquial topic marker (instead of は or とは), e.g.

    人ってすごいよね。
    People are awesome.

  2. Being used as a quotation marker (instead of と or という), e.g.

    変な人って言ってたよ。
    She said you are a little weird.

    人って言葉は何か変だな。
    The word "hito" is kinda weird.

Earthliŋ
  • 47,707
  • 9
  • 125
  • 198
  • I had read somewhere that this grew out of といって, and that this literal "talking about" sense is how this construction came to be used in place of the は topic marker, and the と quotation marker. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 29 '14 at 07:52
  • 2
    @EiríkrÚtlendi That's what I had thought until someone pointed me to [a dictionary](http://dic.search.yahoo.co.jp/search?p=%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6&stype=prefix&aq=-1&oq=&ei=UTF-8). The dictionaries usually say って comes from とて. – Earthliŋ Jun 29 '14 at 12:43