は as sentence final particle

Question

I meant to gather more examples before posting this question, but here we go. These are some lines out of various Ghibli movies I saw last weekend.

わからないは - when asked to take a guess about something
いないは - after looking for someone in a specific place

I realize this is casual and may not be strictly grammatically correct. Still I wonder what's the reasoning behind these type of sentences. It's not difficult to understand what they mean, but why は? How would a native speaker justify the particle? And if someone can tie it to some formally correct version of the sentences that would be great!

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

5

As a sentence-final particle, it's わ, not は. See more about in this post and this post.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

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answered Jun 26 '12 at 21:36

istrasci

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Thank you, simple as that. :) I have not come across わ as a particle in my studies yet. – gibbon Jun 26 '12 at 21:52
@gibbon, neither did I, it was something I just learned from hearing people use it :) – silvermaple Jun 26 '12 at 23:04

は as sentence final particle

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