thematic aboutness and not mere semantic aboutness §2.2.5, with intrinsic interest distinguishing the two. With a mere semantic notion of aboutness, or without considering discourse context, as Strawson
1950:183 rightly observed, “it would be natural to say that, in seriously using the sentence, ‘The whale struck the ship,’ I was saying something both about a certain whale and a certain ship.”
Topicality requires intrinsic interest and thematic aboutness, with the topic construed as a thematic point of integration for the discourse schema.
The way the present treatment defines topic and theme reflects three properties which, according to van Oosten 1984:378, characterize prototypical discourse topics:
• “the focus of the speaker’s attention and of the hearer’s attention and thus in their consciousness,”
• “something that the speaker is interested in and that is the point of view from which the speaker is
viewing the event,” •
“it is present in the immediate environment, concrete and visible.” While the first property—the continual activation of a topic as center of attention—relates especially to
paragraph topics §3.5.2, the other two relate to discourse topics of all kinds. The second property deals both with speaker interest and conceptual integration, while the third is mutual access or identifiability, a
weaker form of “center of attention” cf. the Givenness hierarchy in §2.4.2, a prerequisite of all established topics §3.5.1.
3.2 Elements that can serve as topics
When a referent is first introduced as discourse topic it is often not identifiable, but it must soon become so if it is to serve the integration function which is characteristic of topic. Thus, “Stone soup”
Appendix D begins: 01 A poor man came to a large house during a storm to beg for food. The man is global topic for the text as a whole, but only in line 02 does he begin to function as topic proper, in
integration function: He was sent away with angry words.
The requirement that topics be identifiable is a consensus in linguistic literature: “The addressee can identify the speaker’s intended referent on the basis of the nominal alone” Gundel et al. 1993:277;
“speakers treat a referent as identifiable if they judge that the words they use to express it will enable the listener to identify it” Chafe 1996:38; see also Gundel 1988:214, Li and Thompson 1976:461, and
§2.4.2.
• This requirement includes
GENERIC REFERENTS
, because a generic is an identifiable class, no matter
how it is expressed: a goalie can be expected to let a ball through from time to time.
• The requirement also includes referents that are designated by their
ROLE
in some known frame Fauconnier 1985[1994], §2.2 even if that is the extent of their identification. For example, if we
hear something about “the goalie on Brazil’s soccer team,” we may not know who that is at a particular time or even at a particular point in a game, but for certain purposes the role itself can be
adequate identification: The goalie on Brazil’s soccer team was the key in Thursday’s win over Argentina…. Established topics are always identifiable.
Examples are sometimes cited of indefinite nonidentifiable referents occurring as sentence topics and as discourse topics as well. Langacker, for example, cites the sentence A boy in my class is tall.
Although this example is not cited in a discourse context, it is possible to imagine a paragraph about this boy which begins with the given sentence. Since a boy is grammatical subject, it would be natural to
attempt to parse the sentence as topic-comment, with a boy as an unmarked topic expression, even though the referent is inactive brand-new. It appears that whenever this happens, the topic in question is in the
access function and is being introduced, although in the remainder of the sentence it may also serve the integration function. Such a sentence would serve two or even three roles in regard to the topic: it
introduces the topic, uses it to access a conceptional region its domain, and begins to use it as topic proper, in the integration function.
Lambrecht loc. cit. makes the point that the acceptability of the sentence a boy in my class is tall is due to the fact that a boy is
ANCHORED
by means of the phrase in my class. “Anchoring” is apparently “grounding” Langacker 2000:22f.—embedding the concept in a grounded space that is at least
semiactive see footnote 32. On the discourse level, anchoring often provides orientation for a discourse space §2.3.1. Gundel 1988:215 cites the example An old preacher down there, they augured under the
grave where his father was buried, in which down there embeds the preacher in an active base space of location. Possibly, the topic expression is a reduced form of a formal introduction §3.5.1: There’s an
old preacher down there, they augured under the grave where his father was buried. Unanchored indefinite subjects are more difficult to process, as in the sentence a boy is tall Lambrecht 1994:167,
citing Perlmutter. This has an explanation in discourse terms: new discourse spaces require orientation §2.3.1, and the introduction of an unachored discourse topic does not provide it. A boy is tall could
occur as a micro-level in a grounded discourse space: In my class there are students of different shapes and sizes. A boy is tall. A girl is very short. Another boy is really thin, etc. This is because micro-level
units inherit their orientation from their paragraph §2.6.2.
A further example of this type is a public notice furnished by Ivan Lowe p. c.: Lost, on Saturday, 16th May, one black and tan whippetbeagle cross male wearing a blue collar and a red choke chain. If
you know of his whereabouts or have any information, please contact 01494-483259. A reward will be offered. In the last sentence, the indefinite subject a reward is acceptable even though it is formally
unanchored, since it is a step in an recogizable schema or frame identifying the lost item, notifying its owner, offering a reward. The paragraph itself has orientation as to time and, implicitly, to place.
Not only are topics identifiable as regards knowledge status, but it also appears that they are generally semiactive accessible, as regards activation status. Once again, we must understand that when
discourse topics are first introduced, they may not yet be serving the characteristic integration function, or it may be that they are being forced into it “from birth,” though still technically inactive brand-new. We
observe this in the first sentence of Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad, which uses the literary technique of in medias res: The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was
at rest. Commonly, however, there are constraints that require integrative topics to have a higher activation state. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. The first little pig built his house of straw.
The second little pig built his house of sticks. The third little pig built his house of bricks. This story makes use of a
SMALL CLOSED SET
: {the first little pig, the second little pig, the third little pig}. In this story, this set is mentioned in the title and in the first sentence. This does not mean that it is necessarily
used as a global topic; it could simply give access to a succession of topics for embedded discourse spaces. Each of the little pigs separately is semiactive as a result of the
PARTICIPANT SET
’s activation, hence can be used as a topic in its own discourse space. Certain specific types of discourse topics are
predictably semiactive or even active even when they are first mentioned: •
CONTRASTIVE TOPICS
and constrastive access elements in general apparently need to belong to an
active, or highly semiactive, small closed set of possibilities Chafe 1976:34; but cf. Chafe 1994:77. This means that they are likely to be semiactive when they are first mentioned. In the example You
may be going, but me, I’d never go, the set {you, me} is at least semiactive. We see a similar thing in a brief dialogue in which a car owner asks the mechanic, Can you see if my signal lights are working?
and the mechanic answers: I saw the left one working, but the right one hasn’t come on yet. It may be burnt out. The set {left signal light, right signal light} is likewise at least semiactive. Similarly, when
asked if a certain woman had seen a doctor, a speaker replied Well, she went yesterday, and the doctor wasn’t there, but the physician’s assistant … looked at her Chafe 1994:77. The contrastive
topic of the physician’s assistant with secondary sentence accent is analyzed by Chafe as inactive, but its identifiability indicates that it was part of the active frame of DOCTOR’S OFFICE, hence
likely semiactive.
• P
ARTITIVE TOPICS
and partitive access elements in general need not be contrastive, but apparently
they also need to belong to an active whole, so that they are semiactive when introduced. We can see this in the listing of the parts of the bow in Guarani Example text 9: For its string, I cut down a palm
tree also, and so on for other parts of the bow, which is active.
• A
DOPTED TOPICS
result when one interlocutor in a conversation adopts a topic from another one: A: I wonder where I can get some fleas for my biology experiment? B: Huh Fleas, my dog has Grimes
1975:324. Here, there is both a secondary accent and fronting. This type of topic appears to be always active.
Having seen the importance of small closed sets in accessing future topics, we should note that in some cases, a small closed set can function as a discourse topic in its own right. This is the case in the
following example. Indentation shows the paragraph structure:
Example text 19: Contrived text: “My two children” Langacker 2001a:178; last line added here
01 My two children are very different. 02 Alice is most impressive.
03 She’s clearly extremely smart. 04 She’s also energetic.
05 Now Bill, he’s more ordinary. 06 He’s not terribly active.
07 He is however quite personable. 08 They’re good kids.
Example text 19 is a paragraph about the small closed set MY TWO CHILDREN = {Alice, Bill}. It has a partitive schema. The set is not referred to as such throughout two steps, in lines 02–07, and this is long
enough for a nontopical referent to lose its active status §3.3.5. The fact that it can be referred to again in line 08 with minimal coding is a sign that it is in fact paragraph topic §3.5.2.
3.3 Sentence topics and discourse topics
