cid 1fe5fb9b5ed240e8c34f3f30cd8e080bcecae0f07c3936a93a113e22fd2720b5 · original · via openalex
Title: Topic and topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese Authors: Dingxu Shi Venue: Language Year: 2000 Canonical: doi:10.1353/lan.2000.0070 URL: https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2000.0070 Collector: openalex OA: false ABSTRACT This article attempts to provide a precise definition for topic and to derive most of the properties of topic from this definition. The main assumption is that the topic-comment construction is a syntactic device employed to fulfill certain discourse functions. Topic is always related to a position inside the comment. Since topic has no independent thematic role but always depends on an element inside the comment for its thematic role, it has no syntactic function of its own. This dependence relationship is subject to locality constraints.