keisatsu wa youki no naka ni doku o mitsukemashita.

topic particle

Breakdown of keisatsu wa youki no naka ni doku o mitsukemashita.

• を: direct object particle
• の: possessive case particle
• に: location particle

Questions & Answers about keisatsu wa youki no naka ni doku o mitsukemashita.

How is this sentence put together grammatically?

A natural breakdown is:

• 警察は = as for the police / the police
• 容器の中に = in the container
• 毒を = poison (marked as the thing found)
• 見つけました = found

So the basic pattern is:

Topic + location + object + verb

Japanese often puts the verb at the end, so the sentence literally feels like:

As for the police, in the container, poison found.

Why is は used after 警察 instead of が?

は marks the topic of the sentence. It tells you what the sentence is about.

So 警察は means something like:

• As for the police, ...
• The police, ...

If you used が instead, it would put more focus on the police as the subject, as if answering who found it.

Compare:

• 警察は容器の中に毒を見つけました。
  = The police found poison in the container.
  (neutral/topic-based statement)

• 警察が容器の中に毒を見つけました。
  = It was the police who found poison in the container.
  (more emphasis on who did it)