Textual Role of Topic in Burmese

Peak Structure Sentences Surface Features Notional Structure Theme: Definition S1-3 introduction via presentational sentence. plural, polite Aperture Pre-Peak: Problem: a Causes S4-9 unmarked plural, polite changed, negative mood, Exposition b Results S10-13 increasing complication of S structure, mixed with light S. Developing conflict Thematic Peak: Solution S14-15 density of props participants, verbs of saying, complexity of structure, speed up information, peak S agentless, quote Climax S16 slow down information, equational clause, repeat quote structure of S15 Post Peak: Evaluation: S17 no plural, imperative mood Final resolution Finis: Admonition Didactic Peak S18 no plural, irrealis mood embedded in existence clause Conclusion Table 36. Peak structure of National Day Text

5.3.4 Textual Role of Topic in Burmese

5.3.4.1 Discourse Units with

onf sany Non-final onf sany occurs in four sentences in the National Day text; these are listed in table 37. Sent Clause Role in Sentence Role in Text wefaqmifrkef:vqkwf10 |ufaehonf … [tan-hcaung-mun: la. hcut] [10 rak ne. sany] tazaungmon month end 10 Clf-day day Nom S1 ‘the tenth day of the waning moon of the month of Tazaungmon…’ Old known Information Introduction of Text Theme, serves as Ground \refrmedkifiHonf … mranma nuing-ngam sany Burma country NomTop S4 ‘Burma …’ Old previously introduced - Sent 2 Information Introduction of Paragraph Theme |efukefwUodkvf ausmif:om:rsm:oydwfonf … rankun takkasuil kyaung: sa: mya: sa.pit sany Rangoon university school son many almsbowl Top S10 ‘the Rangoon University student strikers …’ Old previously introduced - Sent 6,8,9 Information Introduction of Section \refrmtrsdK:om:wdkhonf … mranma a-myui: sa: tui. sany Burma a-kind son Pl Top S14 ‘the Burmese people…’ Old previously introduced Re-establish the Discourse Theme as Ground Table 37. Distribution of onf sany in National Day Text The distribution of non-final onf sany marks the beginning sentence of each of four main sections of the discourse, which also correspond to the major divisions of the peak structure. As such, non-final onf sany functions as an initial topic marker of the old information that establishes the Ground, the anchor, the reference point upon which the rest of the new information is built within that particular section, as displayed in table 38. Distribution of onf non-final Peak Structure Sent Clause Peak Structure Sentences wefaqmifrkef:vqkwf10 |ufaehonf… Theme : Definition S1-3 [tan-hcaung-mun: la. hcut] [10 rak ne. sany] tazaungmon month end 10 Clf-day day Nom S1 ‘the tenth day of the waning moon of the month of Tazaungmon…’ \refrmedkifiHonf … Pre-Peak: Arguments: Problem Causes S4-9 mranma nuing-ngam sany Burma country NomTop S4 ‘Burma …’ |efukefwUodkvf ausmif:om:rsm:oydwfonf… Pre-Peak: Arguments: Problem Results S10-13 rankun takkasuil kyaung: sa: mya: sa.pit sany Rangoon university school son many almsbowl Top S10 ‘the Rangoon University student strikers …’ \ refrmtrsdK:om:wdkhonf… Peak : Solution S14-15 mranma a-myui: sa: tui. sany Burma a-kind son Pl Top S14 ‘the Burmese people…’ Table 38. Non-final onf sany distribution with peak structure The sentence-level function of non-final onf sany in the National Day text is to establish information assumed by the speaker as known to the hearer. This type of information is called old, or established information. The linear order of information presentation in Burmese is first old information followed by new information. The presentational sentence 1 of this text sets the topic of the whole discourse National Day as the second element, the new information, in relation to the first element, the month and date. It is the first element, the date, that is marked by onf sany. This exemplifies information the author assumed resident in the general cultural knowledge of the audience. The same assumption does not follow for the second element. The second element is the new information; it is what is salient in sentence 1. For this equative sentence to have been reversed would violate the rules of information structure. Despite being an equational clause, it could not be reordered in Burmese, as it can in English, to read ‘National Day’ first, then ‘is the tenth of Tazaungmon’, as this ordering reverses the topic-comment structure, and changes the assumptions about what is known to the audience, i.e., it assumes everyone knows what National Day is. This is not the case, as the whole discourse explains what National Day is and why it is to be honored and celebrated. At the sentence level, non-final onf sany sets the Ground for the sentence. Whereas at the text level, the function of non-final onf sany is to establish the discourse Ground upon which the general development and processing of focused information takes place across a textual section, where a series of new informational chunks may be introduced and developed over a series of sentences or paragraphs. The known entity or quality of Groundbackground serves to establish a basis upon which newly introduced information can be understood following the Ground-Figure, Absolutive Gestalt. Thus, the very same non-final onf sany may simultaneously perform different functions at different textual levels. The Ground themes of non-final onf sany which serve to introduce Figure topics, using the Absolutive Gestalt of table 33, in the National Day text are presented in table 39. Sentence Theme Ground Burmese Transcription S1 Day aehonf ne. sany S4 Burma \refrmedkifiHonf mranma ning ngam sany S10 University student strike wUodkvf ausmif:om: rsm:oydwfonf takkasuil kyaung: sa: mya: sa.pit sany S14 Burmese People \refrmtrsdK:om:wdkhonf mranma a-myui: sa: tui. sany Table 39. Themes ground marked by non-final onf sany The process of establishing the ground could be viewed as “putting it on the table,” of opening a general topic file during that section of the text. Within the four spans of text begun by the non-final onf sany, new Foci are introduced as Figures. The most immediate Focus for each of these non-final onf sany themes in each section is shown in table 40. Sentence Topic Figure Burmese Transcription S1 National Day trsdK:om:aeh a-myui: sa: ne. S4 English subjugation tFvdyfwdkh vufatmufcHbö anggalip tui. e lak auk hkam bawa. sui. S10 District school children efausmif:rsm: nai kyaung: mya: S14 Independence vGwfvyfa|: lwat lap re: Table 40. New information Figure introduced by onf sany Combining the Ground and Figure roles of section theme and section focus into a paired set establishes a framework of the textual informational moves. These are shown in table 41. One of the textual functions of non-final onf sany is to establish a new textual ground, creating an informational unit of a thematic section. These bounded units correlate to a span found to be relevant in Burmese expository text. Sentence Section Theme Ground Section Focus Figure S1 Day National Day S4 Burma English subjugation S10 University student strike District schoolchildren S14 Burmese People Independence Table 41. Framework for information structure for National Day Text

5.3.4.2 Discourse Units with

u ka. Another postposition commonly labeled as topic is u ka.. Sentences in the National Day text where u ka. is used to explicitly mark the agent or the topic are listed in table 42. The first four occurrences of u ka. are in the discourse textual unit Problem: Causes. This unit of the expository text from ND 4-9 is actually an embedded narrative discourse. Each of the u ka.-marked nominals function as semantic agents. These sentences are high in transitivity, particularly sentences 5 and 6 which are overtly marked with both agent and patient arguments. The pair of postpositional particles u ka. agent and udk kui patient raises transitivity, heightens drama, and produces the type of prominence that is characterized by what is here labeled as a type of information focus based on grammatical role see table 30. The grammatical role of agent as subject is expected in narrative genre, but is not necessary to specify after first mention as long as the agent is continuing in that semantic role. The agent in the first two successive sentences is the English government sentence 5 and 6. This sequence is striking first for its explicit, full mention rather than pronominal or reduced reference following the introduction of this participant in sentence 4 via an oblique possessor semantic role. Secondly, the explicit u ka. marking as an agent is not technically necessary, given that the semantic patient is marked by udk kui. Repetition of the same full NP with explicit u ka. marking in the following sentence is exceptional for typical participant reference. The norm would be for explicit mentions to fade into some oblique role or into zero anaphora as happens in Sentence 7. The force of this repetition is to mark the English government as the aggressor, the force that was in reality oppressing the people of Burma. The drama of this tension is heightened by the increased transitivity indicated by an overtly udk kui-marked animate patient—the Burmese people. The effect of the heightened transitivity is to shift the information gestalt to a Figure-Ground relation from the Ground-Figure relations of Sentence 4. Sent Burmese text Peak Segment Agent Patient u ka. udk k kui tFvdyftpdk:|u anggalip a-cui: ra. ka. S5 English control have Agent Pre-Peak - Problem: Causes English government Burmese people tFvdyftpdk:|u anggalip a-cui: ra. ka. S6 English control have Agent Pre-Peak - Problem: Causes English government University \refrmwrsdK:om:vHk:u mranma ta. myui: sa: lum: ka. S8 Burma 1 kind son Clf-round Source Pre-Peak - Problem: Causes Burmese people zero wUodkvfausmif:om: juD:rsm:u takkasuil kyaung: sa: kri: mya: ka. S9 university school son big many Source Pre-Peak - Problem: Causes University student leaders strike [unmarked] efausmif:rsm:uvnf: nai kyaung: mya: ka. S10 district school many Source Pre-Peak - Problem: Results District school children strike [unmarked] trsdK:om:aehu a-myui: sa: ne. ka. S15 a-kind son day Source Peak: Solution National Day Beginning of independence Table 42. Distribution of u ka. sentences in relation to peak segments Continuing on with heightened transitivity of the same discourse unit of Pre-Peak- Problem: Causes, both sentences 8 and 9 repeat the overt u ka.-marking, but the patient is unmarked and unmentioned. The force of strengthened transitivity iconically imitates the polarization of political forces agentpatient as oppressoroppressed in the grammar. The discourse participant in the u ka. role is shown to be in a power position. The udk kui role identifies the semantic undergoers and associates the identities of those opposed to the British together—the Burmese people 8, university student leaders 9 and district schoolchildren 10. Sentence 8 represents a shift in the power relations of the u ka. role. The Burmese people take over as the overtly marked agent. 4 The presumption here is a power struggle and the winner becomes the sentential agent. The take-over by the Burmese people in sentence 8 is further marked by all three informational devices—information status and both types of information focus. In the focused chart of relative weight see table 31, the agent in sentence 8 has all four weights by being agent and promoted rightward to the focus position next to the predicate. The buildup of u ka.-marked Burmese agents in three successive sentences 8, 9, and 10 indicates an increase in power on the Burmese side of the struggle since sentence 6. The intensification lexically from general to specific and from all ages narrowed down to very young schoolchildren each marked with u ka. reinforces the sense of expansion of power on the side of the Burmese struggle. The use of u ka. reinforces agency and power, and also signals solidarity of the agents thus marked. Interestingly, with Burmese agents there is a noticeable lack of an overt patient. The effect of this is to reduce tension and reduce transitivity. The lack of an overt patient has the effect also of reducing a sense of oppressor marked by u ka., and may also indicate harmlessness, although in the position of power. The final sentence with u ka. is 15. Occurring at the Peak of the discourse, this sentence marks the end of the ascent to the Peak, with sentence 16 beginning a new section as the PostPeak moves toward closure. The information in the u ka. phrase is not animate, unlike the other u ka. phrases, but rather is all the more weighty for returning to the theme of the whole discourse—National Day. Lacking other features of transitivity, u ka. functions not as ‘from’ a person, i.e., the causal agent, but ‘from’ an inanimate object and thus takes on characteristics of spatial location or movement. This notion is extended to the temporal domain and reinforced by the temporal nominal oblique phrase ‘began independence’.

5.3.4.3 Discourse function of

udk kui Postposition udk kui as a patient-making postposition is involved in the marking of topic in two ways, both of which are indirect in this text. The first is positional information focus as the normal occupant of POS 1 see table 31, albeit here in embedded clauses. In the last three sentences of the text, udk kui marks the return of the textual theme ‘the day’, or specifically, ‘National Day’. The repeated pattern of udk kui with the same lexical content or referent reinforces the whole discourse topic at the PostPeak-Evaluation unit of the text. This provides drumming of the thematic discourse topic of the text over the last three sentences ‘day’ and ‘national day’. This section of the discourse is manifest by an embedded hortatory discourse and at a higher discourse level demonstrates a thematic shift to a teaching purpose. The compulsion or admonition of this last section is a prominent part of the text marked by the imperative mood, future, and irrealis. The subject ‘you’ is inferred, thus the information structure is Ground-Figure, the Absolutive 4 u ka. marks not only semantic agent, but semantic experiencer in sentence 8. The semantic roles for this postposition include agent, experiencer, instrument, source. Gestalt, and is manifest by a series of overtly udk kui-marked objects, the repeated discourse topic of National Day. A binary view of information structure has been presented here. When the complement of udk kui, that is u ka., is used to indicate topic as Figure, then udk kui plays a background role in relation to strengthening the distinctness of the opposite side of the gestalt. Depending on which gestalt one uses, Transitive or Absolutive Sentence Gestalt, udk kui has a role in topicality.

5.3.5 Summary of Topic and Information Status