Sentence topics and discourse topics

3.3.2 Sentence topics and discourse topics

One way to compare sentence topics and discourse topics is to draw a conceptual parallel between the two, as I have done thus far. In some sense, DISCOURSE TOPICS are what a particular discourse unit is about, just as SENTENCE TOPICS are what a sentence or utterance is about—if, indeed, either the discourse unit or the sentence is structured around a topic Reinhart 1981, Lambrecht 1994:127; Tomlin et al. 1997:85. Both discourse topics and sentence topics thus serve to integrate the space of their respective textual spans §3.1, and can provide access to it. In this treatment it is hypothesized that the textual spans of topics are linguistic units: sentences or discourse units which could range all the way from micro-levels up to an entire text. The textual span of a sentence topic is the utterance; its syntactic focus domain is commonly called the COMMENT . There are two basic possibilities for defining sentence topics: conceptual or formal. • Lambrecht’s definition of sentence topic is entirely conceptual, both in its short form and in its longer form, which we considered in §3.1: “The topic of a sentence is the thing which the proposition expressed by the sentence is about.… A referent is interpreted as the topic of a proposition if in a given discourse the proposition is construed as being about this referent, i.e., as expressing information which is relevant to and which increases the addressee’s knowledge of this referent” 1994:118, 127. These definitions furnish no formal criteria for sentence topics. • The formal signal which has most commonly served to define sentence topic—initial position in the sentence—comes mostly from the Prague School, from which Halliday adopted it see discussion in Lambrecht 1994:117. The problem with this kind of definition, as Lambrecht and others note, is that it does not correlate well with any conceptual criterion. Lambrecht also points out that grammatical subject, though correlating with topic cross-linguistically, can in specific utterances fail to correspond to topic: there are subjects which are not topics and topics which are not subjects 1994, §4.2. There are, however, languages in which even unmarked topics are signalled grammatically; see Givón 1975 and Watters 1979 for Bantu languages. In Lambrecht’s longer definition of sentence topic cited above, he invokes discourse context to provide evidence that the sentence is construed as being about the topic referent: “if in a given discourse the proposition is construed as being about this referent.” Strawson 1964:97 also invokes discourse or other context in his discussion of sentence topic: the topic needs to “add information about what is a matter of standing or current interest or concern” [emphasis mine; RAD]. Van Valin 2005:104 makes a similar comment: “in topic chains involving zero anaphora, the selection of the argument to be privileged syntactic argument is strongly influenced by discourse pragmatic factors: it must be the primary topic participant.” According to van Oosten 1985:21, “the actual identification of sentence topics as such cannot be made with absolute certainty without context”; again, “I consider it very bad form to talk of the topic of a single sentence. It seems to me impossible to determine the topic of any single sentence without knowing its place in the accompanying discourse” van Oosten 1984:384. Sentence topic, then, is “discourse oriented” Li 1976 Introduction, p. x. In general, it seems that for unmarked topic expressions, the referent can only be identified as a sentence topic if it is at the same time a discourse topic: “Sentences…do not have topics in isolation” Schank 1977:425. Specifically, in English and many other languages, identifying a referent as an unmarked topic for a given utterance requires discourse evidence, not just sentence form; the only unmarked sentence topic expressions worth identifying are those that are “a local reflection” of an established discourse topic Tomlin et al. 1997:89, the projection of discourse topicality onto sentence structure. Briefly, unmarked sentence topics are established discourse topics in the integration function. Their construal as topic depends on the discourse construal of topicality in that context and not merely on a construal of sentence form. The subject relation often does point to unmarked sentence topics, but in a given situation the discourse context needs to be consulted to see if the subject is actually an unmarked topic; conversely, unmarked topic expressions need not be subject Lambrecht 1994, his §§4.2.2–4.2.3. For that reason, there seems to be little point in identifying unmarked topic expressions in utterances. They simply designate established discourse topics. Utterance topics with marked expressions commonly also designate discourse topics, but not generally already established topics in the integration function. The topics they refer to are either in the access function or are contrastive. Further, the discourse topics that they realize are commonly not topics of a full discourse unit, but only belong to a micro-level, a step in a paragraph schema §2.6.2. 83 Such topics are often provisional and do not persist as topics in consolidated, macro-level discourse structure §2.2.7. To summarize: Sentence topics are not simply parallel to discourse topics; they manifest discourse topics in some function and at some level. 84

3.3.3 Sentences without topics