question about sentence structure


I came across this sentence in a workbook: 大町は電車や車の音が五月蠅いです。

If it was changed to: 大町 **の** 電車や車の音が五月蠅いです。 would it still be grammatically
correct?

Thank you.




Both sentences are grammatical, but have different meanings. Let's take a look
at your original sentence first:

> 大町 **は** 電車や車の音 **が** うるさいです。  
>  In Omachi, sound of trains and cars is (always) loud.

Here, 大町 is marked as the topic of the sentence, so you are describing a known
fact about the town. 大町 is the topic, and 電車や車の音がうるさい is the corresponding
comment.

> 大町 **の** 電車や車の音 **が** うるさいです。  
>  Sound of cars and trains in Omachi is loud (today, although Omachi is
> usually a silent town)!  
>  I'm hearing loud noise of cars and trains in Omachi!

You replaced は to の, so there is no longer a topic in this sentence. A topic-
less sentence like this has a special nuance in Japanese. This sentence is now
regarded as a [neutral-description
sentence](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/43213/5010). It means you are
conveying this as a **new or temporary** event about the town.

If you don't want to change the meaning of the sentence but still want to use
の, don't forget to also change が after 音 to は.

> 大町 **の** 電車や車の音 **は** うるさいです。  
>  Sound of trains and cars in Omachi is (always) loud.

Now 大町の電車や車の音 as a whole is the topic of the sentence, and うるさい is the
corresponding comment. This sentence has almost the same meaning as your
original sentence.

More about neutral-description ga:

  * [Why is this sentence ungrammatical? 「お寺が公園のとなりです。」](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/68923/5010)
  * [Why does 「電話は切れた」 sound more adversarial than 「電話が切れた」?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/38639/5010)

