Topics

Abstract

The term Topic is used for at least two different notions in the linguistic literature. Distinctions are proposed to help resolve the resulting terminological confusion. Several tests for Topicality from the earlier literature are considered, and it is demonstrated that they themselves probe for distinct, though closely related, functions in discourse. Based on the proposed tests, it is argued that though Topicality is reflected across a wide variety of the world's languages, it is realized rather differently from language to language, presumably in part as a function of the languages' inherent syntactic and semantic resources. The resulting picture argues for more careful methodology in selecting and analyzing the data on which theories of the role of Topicality in natural language are developed, with implications for syntax, semantics and pragmatics.