Discourse topics and referential frequency

is within its textual span and something of how that unit relates to it. That is, a high-level topic seems to be maintained more through knowledge structure than through its activation status. That being so, the speaker can do two things to facilitate the continued recognition of a high-level topic: he can clearly establish it as topic previously on the higher level as Matthew does for Jesus in 1:1–2:23, and he can clearly signal how the embedded space relates to it as he does in 3:3, 11–12. Second-order discourse topics appear actually to remain at least semiactive, and this could be the case with other high-level topics depending on how the specific content being processed relates to them. 101 This semiactive status is reflected in formal signals of different kinds, particularly intermediate coding weight. First, in certain languages remote topics make use of distal demonstratives of the type ‘that N’ see, for example, Bantu initiative 2005; since in the Givenness hierarchy proximal demonstratives ‘this N’ indicate active referents, there is a possibility that distal demonstratives can be associated with semiactive status. Second, the reintroduction or reactivation of a high-level topic after it has been allowed to fade from activation generally requires lighter coding than for brand-new inactive referents. Thus, in the periodontist text Example text 31, the reactivation expression Her boss in line 33 is not in the syntactic focus domain of that sentence as is required in formal introductions §3.5.1 of an inactive referent, but rather is rather grammatical subject in the unmarked topic-comment configuration. A similar thing is true in Koiné Greek when Jesus is reactivated after the embedded discourse unit with John the Baptist as topic, in Matthew 3:13: ‘Then arrived Jesus from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.’ Since high-level topics tend to have intermediate coding weight when they are reactivated, this suggests that they remain at least semiactive throughout their textual span. As Givón 1995:105 points out, when a high-level topic is reactivated, components of its dominion are once more identifiable. This is in accordance with the general principle mentioned in §2.4.1, that the activation of a concept makes related concepts identifiable.

3.5.3 Discourse topics and referential frequency

In the present treatment, discourse topics are construed as points of thematic integration for a discourse space in relation to a particular structure, the schema; intrinsic rather than mere instrumental interest is also required §2.2.4. Referential frequency, although sometimes equated with discourse topicality de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981:189, Givón 1983, may be due simply to the content and may have little to do either with discourse structure or intrinsic interest §3.5.1. A referent with high referential frequency may actually integrate the discourse space, but without intrinsic interest on the part of the speaker this is mere semantic integration rather than thematic integration §2.2.3. It is in this semantic sense that the puck integrates a narration of a hockey game see Example text 5 from Tomlin 1997; it has instrumental interest, not intrinsic interest. Referential frequency, at least to the point of continual activation, is a property of paragraph topics, but it is not a sufficient condition for topicality on any level, and emphatically not for for higher-level discourse topics §3.5.2. Discourse topicality and referential frequency are answers to different questions. If the question is whether the speaker has organized the discourse unit about a particular referent in which he has intrinsic interest, then the question is about discourse topicality. If the question is how to analyze the pattern of referring expressions in a text, as in Tomlin 1997 and Givón 1983, then referential frequency is quite relevant, and possibly topicality as well. Discourse topics and other themes address the question, “What is the text thematically about?,” whereas referential frequency is one way to investigate the question, “What is the text semantically about?” §2.2.5. But since remote discourse topics can have major stretches with low referential frequency §3.5.2 and, as in the case of the puck in Example text 5, non- topic referents can have high referential frequency, discourse “topicality cannot be established quantitatively. Discourse topics can only be [recognized] by interpreting the text at hand” Wolters 2001:49. 101 Chafe 1994:121 uses the term “discourse topic” for “an aggregate of coherently related events, states, and referents that are held together in some form in the speaker’s semiactive consciousness.”

3.5.4 Sequential connectedness and just-in-time coherence