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.
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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.
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3.3.3 Sentences without topics
Certain sentences do not have the articulation topic-comment or comment-topic. These are called
THETIC SENTENCES
in Lambrecht 1994, §4.2.2. Lowe 2005 lists four types see Figure 13, for which a suitable context can be supplied intonation nucleus is in ALL CAPS:
Identificational sentences: THE CHILDREN wrecked the henhouse.
Event reporting sentences: The children just wrecked the HENHOUSE
Weather sentences: It’s RAINING.
Presentational sentences: There’s a PENGUIN out there in the field.
Figure 13: Thetic sentence types
• Identificational sentences are a subtype of focus-presupposition argument focus sentences, in which
the subject is the argument in focus. They are not to be confused with equative sentences of the type the car I saw in the accident was YOURS, which are of a topic-comment type.
• Event reporting sentences are a subtype of sentences with sentence focus. As in the above example,
they may have subject-predicate structure that is syntactically the same as unmarked topic-comment structure, but their subject is not a sentence topic Lambrecht 1994:136–146. In the exchange A:
What’s the matter with you? B: My NECK hurts, Lambrecht analyzes B’s reply as a thetic sentence whose subject is not a topic, but whose possessor my is a topic apparently a discourse topic. In
English, often the only formal difference between topic-comment and event reporting sentences is in their intonation. Languages such as Japanese have common morphosyntactic signals as well op. cit.,
p. 137.
• In certain languages, such as English, weather sentences may be a subtype of event reporting
sentences, often with a dummy subject Van Valin 2001:2f.. In other languages, such as Mbyá Guarani, they are a distinct type, with no subject at all Dooley 2005, §9.7.
• Presentational sentences often have, and in fact in some languages may require, an expression of time
or location, that is, an expression of orientation §2.3.1. This serves to anchor or ground the new referent §2.4.2. In the example above there is a sentence-final orientation expression. In Luke 4:33
there is a sentence-initial one, a point of departure: “And in the synagogue was a man having the spirit of an unclean demon….” Sentences that predicate absolute existence may constitute distinct
type, with less need for anchoring.
3.3.4 Sentence topics and points of departure
When setting adverbials, conditionals Haiman 1978, Schiffrin 1992 and other adverbial dependent clauses are fronted in a sentence, they are called
POINTS OF DEPARTURE
Dooley and Levinsohn 2001,
§11.4.1: About halfway there, there was some nice couple that decided to let us sit… line 59, “The train
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Cf. Reinhart 1981[1982]:24: “Local entries corresponding to sentence-topics can be further organized under more global entries, thus constructing the discourse topics.”
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Van Oosten 1985:23 defines a sentence topic as “a constituent inside a sentence which most directly evokes the discourse topic which is relevant in the current sentence.” However, her definition of discourse topic is different
from that used in the present treatment.
ride,” Appendix C. Their main conceptual function is to access or orient a new discourse space §2.3.1.
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Points of departure are commonly space builders which serve the access function §3.1, signalling and providing access to a new discourse space. In Matthew 8:1, the point of departure signals and
introduces a new section: When he came down from the mountainside, great crowds followed him. And behold a leper coming… In this example, as well as the preceding one, the point of departure serves both
the orientation and the access function: about halfway there furnishes spatial orientation, while when he came down from the mountainside gives both temporal and spatial orientation. It is common for points
of departure to serve both initialization functions—access and orientation—with respect to a new discourse space. They are thus demarcation elements §2.3.1.
Sometimes the orientation provided by a point of departure comes to serve the integration function as well. One example of this is the poem “In Flanders fields” by John McCrae. The point of departure not
only serves the access function as the title and as the poem begins, but is also used throughout, down to the last line. This expression is thus strongly integrative as well as having the initialization functions of
access and orientation:
Example text 20: “In Flanders fields” McCrea 1919
In Flanders fields the poppies grow Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
However, the occurrence of point of departure in the integration function is not common, even on an utterance level: “the point of departure, realized by the initial element, is not necessarily ‘what the clause
is about’. In fact, unless the point of departure is a participant or a process, it almost certainly is not what the message is about” Downing 1991:141.
Points of departure do commonly share the access function with topic expressions, especially marked topic expressions §3.3.1, in demarcating new discourse spaces. This fact is often reflected in shared
formal signals: initial postition, their own intonation contour, a secondary sentence accent, a bipartite structure linearly, with particles and parenthetical comments possible between the two elements. In the
example cited above, About halfway there, there was some nice couple…, the comma indicates a boundary between intonation contours. In Mbyá Guarani of Brazil, the same spacer elements §3.3.1
occur after topics, adverbial setting elements, sentence-initial connectives, conditionals, and other prenuclear subordinate clauses Dooley 1982:310f..
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In systemic approaches, point of departure is called “theme,” which Halliday 1985:38 defines as “the point of departure for the message.” See also Brown and Yule 1983, §4.2; Fries 1983; Downing 1991; Goutsos 1997:10–14.
When we compare the functions of discourse topics and points of departure in a discourse setting, we note that whereas for nominal topics the integration function is primary, for points of departure the access
function is primary; as shown in Figure 14.
Integration function Access function
Topics general, primary
occasional Points of departure
occasional general, primary
Figure 14: Functions of topics and points of departure
There is a type of expression which in some languages as in subject-prominent English comes out as an adverbial point of departure and in other languages as in topic-prominent Mandarin comes out as a
nominal topic. Chafe 1976:51, citing the English example In Dwinelle Hall, people are always getting lost, comments that “Chinese would not require the in,” that is, there would be a left-detached topic
expression as nominal point of departure where English has an adverbial point of departure. In an example from Korean cited by Li and Thompson 1976:492, the inner level, that is, the clause, is
presentational: ‘[The present time, [there are many schools]’. In examples such as these, the left-detached topic serves both the access function and the integration function: integration, in the sense that the
predication ‘people are always getting lost’ is inseparable from the place ‘Dwinelle Hall’, and ‘there are many schools’ is inseparable from ‘the present time’.
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Nevertheless, the left detachment is associated primarily with access, whether or not the expression is nominal or adverbial.
3.3.5 Sentences with different levels of topic structure
