What does 君って mean here?


> じゃあその中学チャンピオンと互角{ごかく}に戦ってる流河{りゅうが}君ってなんなの？ (Death Note, episode 10,
> 3:55mins)

Context: The speaker is talking about people playing Tennis. And is comparing
Ryuuga [流河] to the other player, trying to point out that he's quite good as
well.

Edit: I figured out by listening to audio that 君 = くん, i.e. the suffix. My
mistake.

って is giving me trouble here, as って seems to take a variety of different
meanings, and it's hard for me in general to pinpoint which meaning it takes
at any given time.




って is a particle that connects 流河君 to 何なの. It has the same grammatical
structure as 流河君とは何なの or 流河君は誰.

This particle puts an emphasis on the previous word. Here, the nuance is that
the speaker actually already knows 流河君, at least cursory, and asking a deeper
question about who he _really_ is. That is, how come he can compete so well
with a champion. I think this is the common underlying theme of this particle
across all its usage, but I'd love to see if you have other examples that
doesn't fit this explanation.

In speech, this kind of emphasis is often used to set a context, so that it
becomes clear what the following sentences are talking about. For example,
健太ってさ、明日暇？

って is also a fairly informal word, so you will almost never see it used in
writing, and it's also inappropriate to use this to someone else who you need
to show some respect.

