Why does 「電話は切れた」 sound more adversarial than 「電話が切れた」?


I noticed that while 「…、電話が切れた」 sounds just like a neutral phrase ("... and
the call got cut off."), 「…、電話は切れた」 sounds more like you were negatively
affected / that the person on the other side intentionally cut off the call.

  1. Are there any other examples where changing が→は causes something similar?
  2. Is there a grammatical explanation for why this is the case?

## Example 1

This is the sentence which first made me think this:

> 「そうですか。わかりました。失礼します！」  
>  一方的に三浦は吐き捨てて、電話は切れた。

池井戸潤『空飛ぶタイヤ（上）』、講談社文庫、p. 353

I felt that は flowed marginally better here -- my initial thought was that
it's because it was an adversarial situation, but perhaps it's for another
reason.

## Example 2

After some Google searching, I found [a document which actually includes both
phrases](http://www.mii.jp/blog/biz/media/111/20121205-1354670538.pdf), and I
think it's interesting:

> 大分市内在住 82 歳男性宅に、「7 月分の高額療養費の支 給が 35,000 円ある。手続きは今日まで。お客様番号を伝
> えるので、保健所に電話するように。お客様番号は 998-573」との電話があった。不審に思い「市役所に出 向けばよいのか？」と聞くと
> **電話は切れた** 。

vs

> 平成２４年１０月１１日午後、大分市に住む７８歳（女 性）の被保険者宅に、支所の職員を名乗る男から電話がか
> かり「保険料の還付が３万円程度ある。８月に緑色の封筒 で通知を送っているが見たか？」と尋ねられた。また番号
> （９９８７４５）を告げられ、これをメモに控えようとし た被保険者が何回か聞き返しているうちに **電話が切れた** 。

To me, the first passage seems to feel like the call was cut in response to
the question, while the second passage is more like the call just cuts at that
point in time (as opposed to being initiated by a human in response to
something).




The most important difference is the same as the difference between 太郎は笑った and
太郎が笑った. From now, let's assume 太郎 is always in "the universe of discourse"
(i.e., everyone in the conversation understands who 太郎 is).

太郎は笑った is typically used in novels, news articles and any other written
documents to describe what happened in the scene, more or less in an objective
manner. However, a sentence like this is unlikely to appear in conversations.

太郎が笑った is typically said by someone who just saw Taro laugh (e.g, "Look, Taro
smiled!"). Even when you say this to Taro's mother holding him, saying 太郎は笑った
in this situation is unnatural, probably because it's an "(unexpected) new
event". Likewise you may say aloud to yourself "冷蔵庫 **が** 壊れた", "先生 **が** 怒った"
and so on the moment you realized these events happened.

I'm not sure, but is this explanation on [the most-voted question on this
site](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/22/5010) relevant?

> neutral description ( _ga_ ) only works with action verbs, existential
> verbs, and adjectives/nominal adjectives that represent state change.
> "Sentences of neutral description present an objectively observable action,
> existence, or temporary state **as a new event**."

The same thing can be said for 電話は切れた and 電話が切れた, too. 電話は切れた would be
perfectly natural in novels, news articles, personal diaries and such, but I
would not use 電話は切れた in speech. When I realize a phone call is unexpectedly
interrupted, I would always say 電話が切れた! (or maybe just 切れた), regardless of the
reason. Or I may say 切られた instead when I'm sure the person on the other side
of the line intentionally hang up (cf.
[迷惑の受け身](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1777/5010)).

I know my answer is imperfect because this does not explain why が is used in
the "聞き返しているうちに電話 **が** 切れた" example. は is probably the more common choice in
this sentence, too, but I vaguely feel the use of が makes the sentence a bit
"vivid and lively".

