Does the use of は or omitting は affect the listener's reply?

Question

This is a question taken from a JLPT excercise workbook.

Person A: 新聞をよく読みますか。

Person B: そうですね。毎日は[Fill in this blank]。

I am given 4 choices, of which only 2 are conjugated correctly.

Choice 1: 読みます

Choice 2: 読みません

To me it seems both options answer the question, since そうですね in this case should be just a 相槌 (interjection used to indicate that the listener is still participating in the conversation), and should not be a consideration factor between Choice 1 and 2.

According to the workbook, Choice 2 is the correct answer. Is there an explanation for this? Or can I just dismiss this as a poorly constructed question in the workbook?

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After considering what Dave said about は. I've come up with some explanation.

This question should have been about the disambiguating function of は.

Person A: Do you read the newspapers frequently?

Person B: 毎日は[Fill in the blank].

The domain that A establishes is "frequently"

B is using は to extract 毎日 from "frequently" as a given premise. (Since the concept of "everyday" is a subset of "frequently")

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This begs the question of why it's wrong when B says the following:

1. 毎日読みません

2. 毎日は読みます

Answer 1

As Dave and Dave M G stated, the answer comes not from そうですね but from 毎日は.

そうですね shows that person B is thinking about the question in a similar way to “Let me see” in English. It does not mean either “yes” or “no.”

は here distinguishes 毎日 (every day) from other possible choices of frequency. 毎日は might be translated to “as long as ‘every day’ is concerned.”

(新聞を)毎日は読みません means that the speaker does not read newspaper every day, and it also means that he/she reads newspaper (in less frequency). That is a good answer to the question “Do you read newspaper often?”

(新聞を)毎日は読みます would mean that the speaker reads newspaper every day, and it also means that he/she does not read newspaper in greater frequency. But if you read newspaper every day, you usually count as a regular reader of newspaper, and there is no point stating that you do not read in greater frequency (say, once every hour).

Answer 2

This is a classic JLPT tricky question.

The presence of そうですね is supposed to mislead you. It seems like a positive agreement, leading to you to think that a positive answer, 読みます【よみます】(to read), is the way to go.

After all, if the answer was just そうですね, then you could translate the conversation like this:

Person A: 新聞をよく読みますか。(Do you often read the paper?)

Person B: そうですね。(Yes, I do)

It would seem reasonable at first guess that the answer should have a positive follow up.

However, as Dave points out in his comment, the は is the tip off that there is a game afoot.

The は is there because it's saying something like "as for...". Which would make the translation using 毎日は読みます something like, "I do read it a lot. As for every day, I read it." So that doesn't seem quite right, does it? It's sort of redundant.

は, or "as for..." seems to be creating a sort of comparison, and that's how we get to the right answer.

A really clunky translation that gives you insight into how the Japanese is constructed would be "Yes I do. As for every day, I don't read it."

The natural English translation would be more like "Yes, I read it a lot. I don't read it every day, though."

So the correct answer is the second choice.

Answer 3

The question in the workbook is not poorly constructed - choice 2 is indeed the correct answer. The reason for this is that the は following 毎日 is being used in a contrastive context.

Person B is, I think, shortening what he is saying. Since the contrastive は requires two parts to to it, in a form such as

寿司は食べれますが、納豆は食べれません

If we combine the latter part of person A's question with the first part of person B's answer, then we can make the first part of person B's answer the following

そうですね。新聞はよく読みますが、毎日は[Fill in this blank]

If my reasoning is correct, then this would be the full structure of the reply that person B is giving, but as is common in Japanese speech, certain parts can be omitted if they do not really add anything to the conversation. In this case, the part that does not add anything is 新聞はよく読みますが. This is because person B is agreeing with the statement that he reads the paper often, even though he does not explicitly state it in his answer. With that, the first part of the contrastive は form is not required, and so the answer can be shortened down to

そうですね。毎日は[Fill in this blank]

Given that we now know what sort of structure is actually being used behind the scenes, we can now deduce that the answer is indeed choice 2:

そうですね。毎日は読みません

Or, in its unshortened state,

そうですね。新聞はよく読みますが、毎日は読みません。

It seems to me as though the そうですね may be being used as an interjection, but may also provide a little context in this case - B agreeing that the content of the question applies to him.

At any rate, I'm not sure if this is the correct thought process for solving the problem, but it's how I would reach the conclusion that 2 is the correct answer.