出身はどこ vs. どこの出身


Does saying どこの出身 sound any different than saying 出身はどこ? More generally, does
adnominally modifying a noun have some other feeling associated with in? That
is, in comparison to just using a standard subject-predicate construction.
(I'm not sure that that is the right descriptor for the second phrasing.)




(The following is based on something I originally worked out for myself. There
may be other views but it seems to hold.)

As the first answer says, the difference between these two expressions will
largely depend on context - the situation, how they are said etc. - and the
nuance is probably slight but worth understanding.

The particle の is often used to replace が and therefore I would suggest that,
**to the extent it exists** , the difference between 出身はどこ and どこの出身 is
similar to the difference between using は and が but with the some provisos.

As が places emphasis on what comes before it and は places emphasis on what
comes after, and you have effectively reversed the word order, you could argue
that the emphasis on どこ has not substantially changed, even if we extend these
expressions into more "complete" formal questions:

> 田中さんはどこの出身でしょう？  
>  田中さんの出身はどこでしょう？

The main proviso is (as pointed out in the response to the previous question:
[noun + の +
adjective](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/14056/noun-) ) that
replacing が with の softens the impact, and places emphasis on what comes after
の.

You could analyse this further but given the two expressions are not that
different, I would suggest stopping here and moving to look at the difference
between between は and が in more extreme and varied cases. There are several
explanations. I find the one by Kuno, cited on this site the most useful.

