Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:32:35.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

28 - Topicalization Defined by Syntax

from Part Four - Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

By
Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai
Edited by
Chu-Ren Huang ,
Yen-Hwei Lin ,
I-Hsuan Chen  and
Yu-Yin Hsu
Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, we present a general picture of how topicalization and topicality can be defined in morphosyntactic terms. We start with an overview of the syntax and semantics of topics from the vantage point of generative syntax and formal logic. We then show that the notion of topic prominence can be defined by typological correlations through a systematic survey across languages. By applying objective tests to sort out the ‘grey areas’ or the spectrum effects of topicality, this line of research may well contribute to our pursuit of an optimal solution to the mystery of linguistic variations: Both the macro-parameter setting of analyticity and the micro-parameter setting of null topic are to be justified on empirical grounds, which, if so justified, will provide an explicit account of the inner working of topicalization, as well as its interaction with other types of syntactic mechanisms such as pro-drop and focalization.

Keywords

Chinese syntaxtopicalizationtopic-prominent languagesyntactic cartographysyntax–semantics interface
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 616 - 634
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ai, Ruixi Ressy. 2014. Topic-comment structure, focus movement, and gapping formation. Linguistic Inquiry 45(1):125–145.Google Scholar
Badan, Linda, and Del Gobbo, Francesca. 2011. On the syntax of topic and focus in Chinese. In Mapping the left periphery, ed. Benincà, Paola and Munaro, Nicola, 63–91. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Badan, Linda, and Del Gobbo, Francesca. 2015. The Even-construction and the low periphery in Mandarin Chinese. In The cartography of Chinese syntax, ed. Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan, 33–74. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. 2008. The macroparameter in a microparametric world. In The limits of syntactic variation, ed. Biberaurer, Theresa, 351–374. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besten, Hans den. 1983. On the interaction of root transformations and lexical deletive rules. In On the formal syntax of West Germania. Papers from the Third Groningen grammar talks, Groningen, January 1981 [Linguistik Aktuell 3], ed. Werner, Abraham, 47–131. Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Biberaurer, Theresa. (ed.). 2008. The limits of syntactic variation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borer, Hagit.1984. Parametric syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Ping. 1996. Pragmatic interpretation of structural topic and relativization in Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 26:389–406.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S. 1991. On the typology of Wh-questions. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Cheung, Candice C.-H. 2015. On the fine structure of the Left Periphery: The positions of topic and focus in Cantonese. In The cartography of Chinese syntax, ed. Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan, 75–130. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1977. On Wh-Movement. In Formal syntax, ed. Culicover, Peter, Wasow, Thomas, and Akmajian, Adrian. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York, NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A’-dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gasde, Horst-Dieter, and Paul, Waltraud. 1996. Functional categories, topic prominence, and complex sentences in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 34(2):263–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grewendorf, Günther. 2012. Wh-Movement as topic movement. In Functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures, volume 7, ed. Brugé, Laura, Cardinaletti, Anna, Giusti, Giuliana, Munaro, Nicola, and Poletto, Cecilia, 55–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2004. Topicalization, CLLD and the left periphery. In Proceedings of the dislocated elements workshop, ZAS papers in linguistics, Vol. 35, ed. Shaer, Benjamin, Frey, Werner, and Maienborn, Claudia, 157–192. Berlin: ZAS.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. Adverbial clauses, main clause phenomena, and composition of the left periphery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth, Jeanne, LaVerne Masayesva, and Platero, Paul. 1977. Three cases of overgeneration. In Formal syntax, ed. Culicover, Peter W., Wasow, Thomas, and Akmajian, Adrian, 379–416. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2008. Parametric versus functional explanations of syntactic universals. In The limits of syntactic variation, ed. Biberaurer, Theresa, 75–108. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1982. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15:531–574.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1989. Pro-Drop in Chinese: A generalized control theory. In The null subject parameter, ed. Jaeggli, O. and Safir, Kenneth, 185–214. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 2015. On syntactic analyticity and parametric theory. In Chinese syntax in a cross-linguistic perspective, ed. Audrey Li, Y.-H., Simpson, Andrew, and Dylan Tsai, W.-T., 1–48. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James, Li, Audrey, and Li, Yafei. 2008. The syntax of Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James, and Roberts, Ian. 2017. Principles and parameters in universal grammar. In The Oxford handbook of universal grammar, ed. Roberts, Ian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kuong, Io-Kei. 2006. Clausal peripheries and resumptives: A cross-linguistic study of topic-comment structures. Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Kuroda, Shigeyuki. 1988. Whether we agree or not. A comparative syntax of English and Japanese. Linguisticae Investigationes 12:1–47.Google Scholar
Li, Charles N., and Thompson, Sandra A.. 1976. Subject and topic: A new typology of language. In Subject and topic, ed. Li, Charles N., 457–489. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Li, Charles N., and Thompson, Sandra A.. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Y.-H. Audrey. 1992. Indefinite Wh in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 1:125–155.Google Scholar
Li, Y.-H. Audrey. 2000. Topic structures and minimal effort. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 20:1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick. 2005. Against a parameter-setting approach to typological variation. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 4:181–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan. 2011. ATB-topicalization in Mandarin Chinese: An intersective operator analysis. Linguistic Analysis 37:231–272.Google Scholar
Pan, Haihua, and Hu., Jianhua 2002. Licensing dangling topics in Chinese. Paper presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
Parsons, Terence. 1995. Thematic relations and arguments. Linguistic Inquiry 26:635–662.Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud. 2005. Low IP and left periphery in Mandarin Chinese. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 33:111–134.Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud, and Whitman, John. 2017. Topic prominence. In The Wiley-Blackwell companion to syntax, 2nd ed., ed. Everaert, Martin and van Riemsdijk, Henk, 4473–4503. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1996. Interface economy: Focus and markedness. In The role of economy principles in linguistic theory, ed. Wilder, C., Gaertner, H. M., and Bierwisch, M., 146–169. Berlin: Akademic Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of grammar, ed. Haegeman, Liliane, 281–338. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 2004. Locality and the left periphery. In Structures and beyond: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 3, ed. Belletti, Adriana, 223–251. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Dingxu. 2000. Topic and topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese. Language 76:383–408.Google Scholar
Shyu, Shu-ing. 1995. The syntax of focus and topic in Mandarin Chinese. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Shyu, Shu-ing. 2014. Topic and focus. In The handbook of Chinese linguistics, ed. James Huang, C.-T., Audrey Li, Y.-H., and Simpson, Andrew, 100–125. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shyu, Shu-ing. 2016. Information structure. In A reference grammar of Chinese, eds. Huang, Chu-Ren and Shi, Dingxu, 518–576. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2001. The (non-)existence of gapping in Chinese and its implications for the theory of gapping. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10:201–224.Google Scholar
Tateishi, Koichi. 2006. Double nominatives in Japanese. In The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 2, ed. Everaert, Martin and van Riemsdijk, Henk, 56–72. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1994. On nominal islands and LF extraction in Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 12:121–175.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1997. On the absence of island effects. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies New Series 27: 125–149.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1999. On economizing the theory of A-Bar dependencies, New York, NY: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2008. Object specificity in Chinese: A view from the vP periphery. The Linguistic Review 25:479–502.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2015. A case of V2 in Chinese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 3(2):59–86.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2019. Causality, commitativity, contrastivity and selfhood. In Interfaces in grammar, ed. Hu, Jianhua and Pan, Haihua, 101–132. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Tsao, Feng-fu. 1977. A functional study of topic in Chinese: The first step toward discourse analysis. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1980. Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11:203–238.Google Scholar
Xu, Liejiong. 2001. The topic-prominence parameter. In Studies in Chinese linguistics II, ed. Pan, Haihua. Hong Kong: Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Xu, Liejiong, and Terence Langendoen, D.. 1985. Topic structure in Chinese. Language 61:1–27.Google Scholar
Xu, Liejiong, and Liu, Danqing 徐烈炯, 劉丹青. 2007. The structure and function of topics 話題的結構與功能. Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Publishing.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×