Syntax of 私たちのこれが〜

Question

In one song (lyrics link) the line "Watashitachi no kore ga precious heartbeat" ("It's our precious heartbeat") appears, and I'm not sure how best to analyze it due to one particular grammatical structure.

"kore ga precious heartbeat" is clearly a straightforward verbless copula - "it's our precious heartbeat". What I'm unsure of is how to syntactically interpret "watashitachi no" ("our"). Thus far my best guess is that it's a wa-less topic.

A more straightforward interpretation would be "this of ours". But is this even plausible? I tried searching on WWWJDIC for "no kore" and found only 3 examples, and all three of them could plausibly be explained as something other than that. So at this point I don't have any evidence that that's possible. Is there some structure in Japanese where "watashitachi no kore" could be a phrase - and if so, what is the structure in question?

Answer 1

"no" performs its role as a genitive case particle.

This structure may appear more familiar/recognizable:

これが私たちのprecious heartbeat(だ)

(the fact that there is no copula superficially doesn't necessarily mean that there is no copula)

"私たちのこれがprecious heartbeat" is one of the possible orders. The possessor can shift (in a relatively non-complex sentence) and maintain the same meaning.

It is これが+[私たち+の+precious heartbeat]+(だ) then the modifier noun 私たち shifts to the front without changing its relation to the modified noun precious heartbeat. It is still underlyingly [私たちのprecious heartbeat].

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Genitive Case: It is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. A genitive construction involves two nouns - the head (modified) noun and the modifier noun. The modifier noun modifies the head noun by expressing some property of it.

Answer 2

The particle が can also act as の.

For example: 我{わ}が国{くに} ("my country") can also be written as わたしの国. (cf. example source)

So, in the example sentence from the lyrics posted, it could potentially also be written like this:

わたしたちのこれのprecious heartbeat.

But for something artistic, variety might look better than repetition. I see this が usage most often in poetry or lyrics.

The が here could be being used to place emphasis on the "THIS is our precious heartbeat" part, as well.

Note for the anonymous downvoters: just a reminder that song lyrics (as well as poetry,) can often be wide open to interpretation. Unless one talks to the song writer to get the original intent behind a line in a song, lyrical interpretation is mostly speculation. Even when the original meaning is found out from an author, there still may be more ways to read a line than the author intended.

Answer 3

For some reason I don't seem to be able to comment on Flaw's non-answer, so I'm writing my own non-answer in response.

"There is nothing special going on here. "no" performs its role as a genitive case particle.

Genitive Case: It is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. A genitive construction involves two nouns - the head (modified) noun and the modifier noun. The modifier noun modifies the head noun by expressing some property of it."

...yes, my entire analysis (and confusion) was based on the fact that "watashitachi no" was indeed a genitive phrase. As stated, my question was how this genitive phrase ended up at the beginning of the sentence, separated from the nominal it modifies - "precious heartbeat" - by the subject of the clause. You seem to indicate in a comment that this is possible (without assuming that it was topicialized, as I wondered about). If you could explain the rules governing such movement in Japanese, that would answer the question I asked.