A discourse Grammar of Mandain Chinese3

TOPICALITY, PROTOTYPE AND THE CHINESE TOPIC

The term topic was first proposed by Hockett (1958) to capture a linguistic concept that exhibits some similarity to the syntactic notion of subject, but is not as easily definable in syntactic terms. I It was thus thought of more or less as a semantic notion. Hockett (1958:20 I) notes that 'the most general characterization of predicative constructions is suggested by the terms "topic" and "comment" for their ICs [Immediate Constituents]: the speaker announces a topic and then says something about it.' Chao (1968) applies it to the analysis of Chinese structure and uses the pair topic and comment to interpret the meaning of the subject and predicate in Chinese. Later in the 70s, the notion 'topic' was worked on in more detail, most notably in Li and Thompson (1976) and Tsao (1979). The former propose to consider Mandarin Chinese as a topic-prominent language as opposed to subject-prominent languages like English. The latter stresses the discourse nature of topic. In a more recent effort, Tsao (1990) further elaborates at great length on the notion topic and its functions. In another direction, Xu and Langendoen (1985) and Her (1991 a) are representative of the syntactic considerations of the Chinese topic.

Two basic facts have been made clear by leading researchers in this area: (i) Topic is a discourse notion while subject is a syntactic one, and (ii) topic and subject are not mutually exclusive, i.e. a topic, though independent of a subject, may also play the role of a subject and vice versa (see Tsao, 1990: 171). Fact (i) implies that the study of topic would be meaningless ifit was confined within the domain of a sentence. Fact (ii) entails that cases where a topic is at the same time also a subject merit equal attention. (In the past, attention has generally been centered on isolated and highly marked topics, ones that are clearly separate from the subject.) Though obvious, these two facts have consistently been overlooked in many of the past studies.

In this chapter, we will thus (i) stress the discourse function of topic as well as its place ~na sentence and (ii) look into the unmarked cases where topic, not being overtly signalled, has not been keenly observed by many analysts. Most important of all, we will apply the notion 'prototype' to the definition of topic so that it will cover a range of facts that are related to topic but have so far defied analysis. To begin our analysis, we will briefly present the similarities and differences between topic and subject first.

The applicability of the characterization may vary from language to language. In English, attribute (c) is not a necessary condition because some subjects may be postverbal, e.g. in inverted-subject sentences and existentiaVpresentative sentences.

On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese being a non-inflectional language does not exhibit any agreement with the verb. In many languages, 'doing' or 'being' relationship with the verb is a usual characteristic of a subject, but it is not always present in all subjects. Actually, the characterization may vary in its applicability even in the same language. Observe:

Except for (2.a) where the 'full-fledged' subject Bill possesses all three attributes listed in (1), none of the other three subjects are as 'full-fledged' -they lack one or two of the attributes. The one in (2.b) doesn't bear any 'doing' or 'being' relationship with the verb, the one in (2.c) is not in a preverbal position, and the one in (2.d), Bill, Jim, and Jack, doesn't even agree with the verb. However, both intuitively and technically, all the sentences in (2) are recognized as having a subject, though some ofthe subjects can be better characterized than others. On the basis of facts like the above, it is perhaps appropriate to consider some subjects more typical than others in grammatical study.

On the other hand, English assigns a topic status to a sentence-initial nominal that cannot be reasonably recognized as a subject (e.g. bearing no 'doing' or 'being' relationship with the verb) or is marked one way or another (e.g. by a preposition or the presence of a more subject-like nominal) as a non-subject. E.g.

pronominalization or deletion processes: reflexivization, imperativization and Equi-NP deletion.

Both as/or brealifast and the movie are generally considered topics (or themes). If, however, we take the characterization ofa subject in (1) more seriously; then some subjects (such as Japanese cars in (2.b) and the preverbal nominal in a passive sentence) appear less like subjects but more like topics because they occupy the sentence-initial position but don't bear any 'doing' or 'being' relationship with the verb.

The above discussion suggests that subject is an indiscrete notion: nominals may be typical or less typical subjects, depending on their position in the sentence and their relationship with the verb. It also suggests that there is no clear-cut dividing line between topic and subject in English. It then appears that subject and topic may even overlap: A subject may simultaneously serve as a topic and vice versa. Recognition of this last possibility might seem to cause some conflict or contradiction in theory or practical operation, because topic and subject are two distinct notions. But, in fact, it does not; for topic and subject don't operate on the same level ofthe system-topic operates on the discourse level and subject, on the syntactic (and therefore sentential) level.

Along this line of thinking, we will examine the status ofthe Chinese topic and its relationship with the subject below.

In the research literature, differences between topic and subject have often been stressed to the point that they have dazzled and blinded the reader to the fact that there are many similarities between the two as well. A careful examination of the characteristics of both topic and subject reveals that they are just as much alike as they are different. For example, Tsao (1990: 170) identifies the following as the properties of a Mandarin subject:

b) By position, subject can be identified as the animate NP to the left of the verb; otherwise, the NP immediately before the verb. c) Subject always bears some selectional relation to the main verb of the sentence.

Tsao (1990: 170 & 326) also identifies a Mandarin topic as possessing the following properties: (5.a) Topic invariably occupies the S-initial position of the first clause in a topic chain. b) Topic can optionally be separated from the rest of the clause in which it overtly occurs by one of the four pause particles: a (ya), ne, me, and ba.

d) Topic is a supraclausal notion; it may, and often does, extend its semantic domain to more than one clause. e) Topic is in control of the pronominalization coreferential NPs in a topic chain.

or deletion of all the

t) Topic, except in clauses where it is also a subject, plays no role in such processes as reflexivization, Equi-NP deletion or imperiativization.

While the properties in the two sets are stated as different, a closer examination may uncover a number of similarities. We will look at the properties one by one in the following.

Firstly, it is true that subjects are always unmarked by prepositions, as stated in (4.a); yet topics do not have to be marked by prepositions, either. E.g.

(6) Zheben shu, wo yijing nianle san bian Ie. this-M book, I already read-PFV three time LE 'This book, I have already read (it) three times.' (Tsao, 1990: 178) where zheben shu 'this book' is a topic but is not marked by any preposition. In fact, in many of the examples that Tsao (1990) gives, the topics are not marked by any preposition. Secondly, we fmd that the S-initial (as stated in (5.aÂť or pre-verbal position (as stated in (4.bÂť is the typical slot for both topics and subjects in Mandarin. Only when both a topic and a subject occur separately in the same clause do the positions make a difference: the topic occupies a position in front of the subject. The humanness of a subject stated in (4.b) is only a tendency and cannot be interpreted as a negative restriction on the topic, as topics may very well be human. Thirdly, the statement in (4.d) that 'a subject tends to have specific reference' actually shows its close similarity to, rather than any difference from, a

topic, as the latter is always defmite or generic, as stated in (5.c). Fourthly, property (4.c) about selectional relations and property (4.e) concerning roles in transformations have most often been used to identify a subject as different from a topic. But, unfortunately, the existence of property (5.t) proves them to be unreliable: a topic is not prohibited from having selectional relations to the main verb or playing a role in the transformations as long as it is also a subject. In the fmal analysis, there leaves only properties (5.b), (5.d) and (5.e) to identify the topic with. (The second portion of(5.a) '[a topic appears] in the first clause in a topic chain' might also be considered a relevant feature, but there is some problem with that statement and we will address it later.)

Here, we list the remaining properties of the topic that have survived a comparison of(4) and (5): (7.a) A topic can be optionally separated from the rest of the clause by a pause or one of the four pause particles: a (ya), ne, me and ba. (adapted from (5.b) above) b) Topic is a supracluasal notion: it extend its semantic domain to more than one clause. (adapted from (5.d) above) c) A topic is in control of the pronominalizatin or deletion of all the coreferential NPs in a topic chain. (adapted from (5.e) above) The number of the surviving properties to identify a topic with might seem very small, but they provide a good starting point for further examination. On this basis, we will try to define what a topic is both in general and in Mandarin Chinese.

The recognition of the fact that topic is a discourse notion may have some important consequences. First, it naturally follows that in an isolated sentence with no discourse context, there is no need to decide whether a given nominal is a topic or not. For example, in a sentence like (8) below: (8) Ta lai kan ni Ie. he come see you LE 'He came/is coming to see you.' 'he' can certainly be identified as a subject by the criteria in (I.a) and (I.c) or in (4.b) and (4.c). Tsao (1990:171) also labels it as a topic. In fact, it is a moot question whether the nominal is also a topic unless a context is provided. The same nominal, conceivably, mayor may not function as a topic, depending on its context.

Sentence (8), for instance, may occur in any of the following environments: fa

(9.a) Ta lai kan ni Ie, keshi ni bu zai. he come see you LE, but you not at 'He came to see you, but you were not in.' b) Ni bu shi shuo hen jiu mei jiandao fa Ie ma? Ta lai kan ni Ie. you not be say very long didn't see him LE Q he come see you LE 'Didn't you say you hadn't seen him for a long time? He's coming to see you.' c) Ta lai kan ni Ie, 0 hai daile jige pengyou lai ne. he come see you LE, further bring-LE a-few-M friend come NE 'He came to see you (and he) brought some friends with him. ' Sentence (8) is made a part of each of the mini-discourses in (9). In each of the contexts, the subject fa 'he' of (8) plays a different role in terms of the relationship between the clauses. In (9.a), it plays no role to relate the clauses. The clauses are related by the use of ni 'you' in both. Evidence for the relationship can be found in a negative way when either of the token ni is replaced by anything else and the discourse becomes incoherent. Since the subject fa in (9.a) does not possess any of the properties in (7), it is not a topic in the discourse. In (9.b), the subject fa in the second clause serves to relate the clause to the first one by its coreferential status with the object fa in the first. That is, both tokens of fa refer to the same person. In this sense, the subject fa has the property in (7.b) and is marginally qualified for topic.3 In (9.c), the two clauses are related not only by the coreference of the two subjects, fa and 0, but also by the deletion of the second subject (i.e. it would be fa instead of 0 if no deletion is involved). Thus, the first subject fa possesses both properties in (7.b) and (7.c) and is more qualified for topic than the subject fa in (9.b).

The examples in (9) illustrate the importance of discourse context in the function of a nominal as a topic. It is shown that the same nominal in the same clause may play different roles with regard to topic, depending on what precedes or follows it. Moreover, the roles it plays may vary in the number of topic properties they possess. The fa in (9.a) possesses none, the one in (9.b) possesses one, and the one in (9.c) possesses two.

The second consequence of recognizing topic as a discourse notion has to do with marked topics. (They are considered marked topics because they occur sentence-initially with markers like prepositions, there is another nominal between them and the main verb is recognizable as the subject.) Discussing them in isolation may often lead to skewed conclusions. Some of such topics are illustrated in (10) below.

(I O.a) Zhege ren (a), tounao jiandan, sizhi fada. (Tsao, 1990:57) this-M person (A), mind simple, four-limb well-developed

b) Xinfengli zhuangbujin zheixie zhaopian. (Li & Thompson, 1981 :95) envelope-in fit-not-enter these photo 'These photos won't fit in the envelope.' c) Guanyu zhege wenti, wo you yige jianyi. in-regardto thisM problem, I have aM suggestion.

'In regard to this problem, I have a suggestion.' d) Anzhao shengjing shang jiang, shen ta dingle yige shumu. by Bible in say, God he set-PFV a-M number 'According to the Bible, God set a number.' (Ho, 1993:40) The underlined portions in the examples are marked topics of the sentences for various reasons. The construction in (10.a) is known as 'double subject' or 'double nominative', where two nominals occur one after the other in front of the verb. The first nominal is invariably assigned a topic status because the other nominal is the subject by being closer to the predicate and by having more usual semantic relations with the verb. In other words, the assignment of the topic status is not done on much positive evidence (except the potential pause or pause particle), but by default. In (10.b), the locative phrase xinfengli 'in (the) envelope' is considered a topic, because such phrases 'set the frame within which the rest of the sentence is presented, they are definite, referring to places ...about which the hearer already knows, and they may be followed by a pause particle.' (Li & Thompson, 1981 :95) These properties, however, deserve comments. The first one 'setting the frame' is very vague. Almost any clause-initial nominal can serve this purpose. The second one, definiteness, is not unique to a topic: all preverbal nominals tend to be definite.

(Cf., for example, Sun and Givon, 1985; Wang, 1988; but see Chap. 5, especially Section 5.2.) That again leaves the potential pause particle alone as the only criterion for identifying the topic. In (10.c), duiyu zhege wenti 'in regard to this problem' is a prepositional phrase. As such, it is not as qualified to be the subject as the next nominal wo 'I' (cf. (4.a) above). And it doesn't bear any semantic relationship with the main verb (cf. (4.b) above). Ifit can not be a subject, then it must be a topic. Again, the assignment is one by default. Similarly, in (10.d), anzhao shengjing shangjiang 'according to the Bible' is a prepositional phrase with a nominalized clause in it and thus is not as qualified to be the subject as the next nominal shen ta 'God he'. For no better label, it is called a topic. These, of course, are considerations within the confinement of the clause structure only.

We have seen that all the designated topics in (10) are recognized as such mainly by default. It is true that they look more like topics than anything else. But, the properties extracted from them are not necessarily essential characteristics of a topic. To defme a topic on the basis of these properties (which most analysts do) is

at least misleading, if not a mistake. It is especially so when topic is considered a discourse notion. Moreover, there must be a reason why the sentences are constructed as topic sentences. Given the properties above, there is no way to see why the sentences must be constructed the way the are. Analyzing such constructions in isolation gives the false impression that the properties mentioned above are the most essential qualities oftopic and that the sentence structures are all there is to topic. Let us take (10.d) for example. Ho treats it as having a thematic structure is that the topic [his theme] is explicitly signalled by a topic marker. But, on the other hand, he insists that one of the main functions of topic is to serve as a cohesive link between the utterance that it introduces and those that precede it. (p.27) Discussing it in isolation as Ho does, certainly doesn't serve 4 to discover any cohesive linking purpose.

The foregoing discussion indicates that studying topic in isolated sentences is destined to failure in the attempt to discover its essential qualities. This explains why almost all studies on topic have merely centered around its 'identifying' characteristics. Most of these characteristics, in fact, are just reflections of its essential properties and do not serve to 'define' what a topic is. It is therefore the most important task of the present writer to distinguish qualities that are useful for identification but are not essential properties from those essential ones that can serve to define the topic.

Chu (1993) proposes a prototype approach to the Chinese topic. He believes that recognized topics actually may vary in their degrees of topicality. That is, some nominals are typically usable as topics and others are less typically so. The most typical cases constitute the prototype that possesses all the attributes of a topic. Less typical ones are those that possess fewer attributes but are nonetheless recognizable as topics. Still others may have so few attributes that they appear marginal in their being recognized as topics. Finally, there are non-topics which have none of the attributes. In other words, the higher degree of topicality a nominal is, the more likely it is used for a topic.

To define the prototype, Chu (1993:37) presents a list of hierarchical attributes of a Mandarin Chinese topic as follows:

a. Being a nominal b. Serving as an interclausallink

a. Being specific/referential b. Occupying the sentential-initial/preverbal

position

Though it is obvious that the attributes are extracted from the lists of properties by previous researchers, Chu has screened them through a study of different types of topics and a survey of native speakers on a short text. By recognizing both facts that the attributes ofthe Chinese topic are hierarchical in nature and that Chinese topics may not always possess all these attributes, Chu is able to explain certain problems that have hitherto been a puzzle to, and a dispute among, Chinese grammarians. For example: (12) Qiangshang pazhe hen duo bihu. (Li and Thompson, 1981 :95) wall-on crawl-DUE very many salamander 'The wall has a lot of salamanders on it/There are many salamanders crawling on the wall.'

While Li and Thompson claim that Qiangshang 'on the wall' in (12) is the topic, other grammarians contend that the topic is rather hen duo bihu 'very many salamanders', (See Li, 1991.) Judged by the attributes in (11), however, both are qualified for topic and one is only a little more likely to be a topic than the other.

Qiang(shang) is a nominal, it is defmite (and therefore specific), and it occupies the sentence-initial position. It has one primary attribute and two secondary ones. On the other hand, hen duo bihu is a nominal, and it is specific. It also has a primary attribute but only one secondary one. As both possess some topic attributes both of them are possible candidates for topic. But, since Qiang(shang) has one more secondary attribute than hen duo bihu, it is more likely to become a topic than the other. To demonstrate this fact, we use another clause to follow (12), as in (13): (13) Qiangshang pazhe hen duo bihu, bie qu pang O/ta. wall-on crawl-DUE very many salamander, don't go touch O/it/them (i) 'The wall has a lot of salamanders crawling on it, don't touch it. (ii) 'There are a lot of salamanders crawling on the wall, don't touch them.'

Both translations (i) and (ii) are possible. But (i) is more natural than (ii), just because the O/ta in (13) is more likely interpreted as 'the wall' (as is indicated by it in translation (i)) than as 'salamanders' (as is indicated by them in translation (ii)).

The reason that O/ta in (13) is more likely to be interpreted as 'the wall' than as 'salamanders' is that the former possesses one more topic attribute than the latter and is thus more easily recognizable as the topic. This easy recognition is then transferred to the interpretation of the O/ta in the following clause as 'the wall'.

Some would argue that the reason why the interpretation of O/ta as 'the wall' is more likely than as 'many salamanders' is the agreement in number, i.e. ta and 'the wall' are both singular. But it is a well-known fact that ta can be used as an unifier for plural nouns in the object position. (Cf. Chao, 1968:634.)

Before we give some more examples to show how the prototype approach works, we summarize Chu's (1993) position in the following: (14) While it doesn't make much sense to ask whether or not a nominal is a topic within the context of an isolated clause, any nominal may be judged by the qualities in (11) above as to its potential to become a topic. A nominal may possess all, some or only one (i.e. being a nominal) of the qualities listed in (11) and therefore may vary from having a very high to a very low potential for becoming a topic. The nominal that possesses all the qualities is a prototypical topic in Chinese.

Nominals that possess a large number of topic qualities are said to be high in topicality. Those with fewer such qualities are lower in topicality.

The following examples in (15)-(19) illustrate how the prototype approach explains topicality in longer stretches of discourse. All of them are presented in their original organization, i.e. 'sentences' are divided where there is a period in the original text. Example (15) below shows how a most eligible nominal is picked up as a topic. This way of organizing a topic usually enhances smooth reading.

(15.a) Zai zhege Hong-Song-Cun zhong, hao xia qi de ren bu duo, at this-M Red-Pine-Village in, like play chess DE person not many,

o ye

you ge jishi haozi.5 but have STRESS several-ten people.

'In this Red Pine Village, though there are not many who like to play chess, yet there are several dozens of them.' b) Diaoyun Gu Zhang ke suan ming-lie-qian-mao.

Transportation Section Chief can be-counted among-the-best 'The Transportation Director is among the best.' c) Mei feng Nian-Jie kaizhan xiangqi bisai, every-time when N ew- Year start elephant -chess tournament,

wanliang jiacai, dan 0 linse de hen.

1O,000-tael family-wealth, but stingy DE very

o zong

shi tou wu-ming zhi-nei. always be first five-place within

'In every New-Year Chinese chess tournament, (he) is never lower than the fifth place.'

'This Magistrate was an expert in embezzlement. Though he had accumulated a wealth of 10,000 taels of silver (by embezzlement), he was extremely stingy.' b) Zhu Zhishan zhidao ci ren dixi, 0 juexin jiao ta Zhu Zhishan know this person bottom-detail, be-determined make him

The passage in (15) is made up of three 'sentences' (a), (b) and (c). In the first clause of (a), there are two nominals Hong Song Cun (zhong) 'Red Pine Village (inside)' and hao xia qi de ren 'people who like to play chess.' As nominals, both of them should be eligible for topic. But, as the former is contained in a prepositional phrase headed by zai 'at', it is not directly involved as a clause constituent and cannot participate in the competition for topichood. As a non-topic, it cannot corefer with any unifier in the next clause. Thus, the 0 can only corefer with hao xia qi de ren 'people who like to play chess'. Though (b) and Š are presented as separate sentences, they are linked by the 0 in (c), which corefers with Diaoyun Gu Zhang 'Transportation Director'. One might ask why the 0 can't corefer with any of the other nominals which are closer to it than Diaoyun Gu Zhang? The answer is, again, the other nominals (i.e. Nian Jie 'New Year' and xiangqi bisai 'Chinese chess tournament') are not as qualified to be a topic as Diaoyun Gu Zhang is. The interpretation, of course, is also helped by the semantic relation between the human noun and the predicate zai tou wuming zhinei 'within the top five places.' (This certainly is a piece of negative evidence against topics having no semantic relations with the main verb.) On the other hand, proximity doesn't seem to count in terms of topic eligibility, though we will see later that it does count in topic continuity when there is some competition.

In (15), we have recognized two topics, hao xia qi de ren 'people who like to play chess' in (a) and Diaoyun Gu Zhang 'the Transportation Director' in (b). But they can not be so recognized just by the organization of the clause in which each of them occurs. They don't become topics until a coreferring unifier is identified in a following clause. Here, both anaphors are in the form of O.In the case of Diaoyun Gu Zhang, no unifier is found until two clauses later.

The next text is a further illustration of how the most eligible nominals are 6 continued on as topics. It also exemplifies other nominals performing an interclausal or inter-sentential linking function, though they are not qualified for topic in the particular case.

(16.a) Zhege Taishou shi ge gua-dipi de nengshou, suiran 0 guale this-M Magistrate be M embezzle DE expert, though embezzle-PFV

po-dian-cai, 0 guyi kai-da-kou, 0 yao erbailiang yinzi pay-a-price, intentionally, open-big-mouth, ask 200-tael silver

o cai

ken dong-bi. only-then willing start-painting

'Zhu Zhishan knew this person inside and out and was determined to make him pay a price. So he asked for a hefty 200-taels of silver before he would start (on the painting).' c) Nashi, erbailiang bu shi yige xiao shumu, 0 xiangdangyu yihu that-time,200-tael not be a-M small amount, correspond-to a-M zhongdeng renjia de caichan, Taishou nali shede O? middle-class family DE wealth, Magistrate how willing-to-part-with 'At that time, 200 taels of silver was not a small amount (of money) and was about the worth of a middle-class family. How on earth would the Magistrate give away (so much)?'

(Shen,1987:18) In each of the original 'sentences' (a), (b) and (c), the initial nominal (i.e. the one underlined) is the most topical in nature and as a result all the subsequent zeroanaphors corefer with this initial nominal. Similar to the phenomena in (15), the intervening nominals between the topic and the zero-anaphors do not figure in the topical coreference because they are lower in topicality.

However, it doesn't mean that low-topicality nominals cannot serve as links between clauses or sentences. The nominal ci ren 'this person' in (b), for example, serves an inter-sentential linking function by coreferring with zhege Taishou 'this Magistrate' in (a). In the second clause of (b), ta 'he' corefers with ci ren 'this person' in the first clause to provide an interclausallink. But, compared with zhege Taishou and its zero-anaphors in (a) and Zhu Zhishan and its zero-anaphors in (b), the two nominals in question are less topical and thus are not regarded as topics despite their linking function. They link by providing lexical cohesion. (Halliday

& Hasan, 1967) The choice of anaphoric fonns (e. g. between ci ren 'this person' , ta 'he/she' and 0) will be discLissed in Chapter 8.

The next example illustrates a dubious case of topic.

(17) Yijiuwuliu nian, Dang-Zhongyang tichule 'bai-hua-qi-fang, 1956 year, party-central propose-PFV 'I OO-flower-together-bloom, bai-jia-zheng-ming' de jangzhen yihou, 0 zhubu xiaochule 100-school-compete-voice' DE directive after, gradually eliminate-PFV renweide she Ii jinqu suo dailai de buliang yingxiang. artifically set-up off-limit-area SUO bring DE evil effect 'After the Party Authorities enforced the policy of"IOO flowers bloom together and 100 schools (of thought) compete together" in 1956, the evil effects brought upon by artifically setting up off-limit areas were gradually eliminated. '

c) Zhe shi chuan ne, zhenghao daole Gu Shan, daole this time boat NE, happen-to reach-PFV Gu Hill, reach-PFV Hangzhou Xihu de Gu Shan zhe difang.

Hangzhou West-Lake DE Gu Hill this place 'The boat happened to have reached Gu Hill, to have reached Gu Hill, a place on the West Lake in Hangzhou.' d) Zhege difang ne, jiushi you yige hen zhumingde jingzhi, jiaozuo this-M place NE, that-is has a-M very famous scenery, called Duan Qiao, jiao Duan Qiao.

Broken Bridge, called Broken Bridge 'This place, that is, has a very famous scenery, called Broken Bridge, call Broken Bridge.'

There is a zero-unifier in the second clause. It is not clear whether it corefers with Dang-Zhongyang 'the Party Authorities' orjangzhen 'directive/policy'. It would seem that 'the Party Authorities', due to its high topicality, should be a more likely topic for the zero-unifier to corefer with. But, since the first clause is quite like a presentative structure, the highly infonnative nominal in the object position is also a likely candidate to be picked up as a topic in the discourse.

The following example illustrates how a nominal with low-topicality can continue as a topic.

(18.a) Keshi [Xu Xian] zai you Xihu de shihou ne,7 buqiao zhenghao but [Xu Xian] at tour West-Lake DE time NE, unluckily just fengyu dazuo, xiaqileyulai. wind-rain heavy, rain-PFV-INCH 'But when [Xu Xian] was touring the West Lake, there started a rain stonn.' b) Ta zuo zaiyouchuan limian ne, 0 bei yushui lin de hen he sit at pleasure-boat inside NE, by rain-water soak DE very langbei. embarrassing

e) Ta jiu zai qiao xia bi fengyu. he then at bridge under shelter wind-rain 'He sought shelter from the rain stonn under the bridge.'

(Ho,1993:195-6) As a main participant in the narrative, Xu Xian is the topic of the whole story. He is either referred to as ta or O. Nevertheless, in the absence of the main topic, something else may be used as a sub-topic of the narrative or descriptive. For example, chuan 'boat' in (c) serves as a sub-topic by coreferring with youchuan 'pleasure boat' in (b); and zhege difang 'this place' in (c) and (d) fonn a sub-topic.

The qiao 'bridge' in (e), however, doesn't serve as a topic in spite of its coreference with Duan Qiao 'Broken Bridge' in (d). The reason is that in the same clause there is another nominal, ta, which is much higher in topicality than qiao. If (l8.e) is substituted for by something like (l8.e') below, then qiao 'bridge' would be a topic.

(18.e') Qiao xia keyi bi fengyu. bridge under may shelter wind-rain 'The bridge provides a shelter from wind and rain.'

We have shown in (18) that a nominal oflow topicality relative to other nominals in the same clause may be picked up for topic when a later nominal of high topicality corefers with it. In (18.b), youchuan 'pleasure boat' is a low-topicality nominal relative to the other nominal ta 'he' in the same clause. But when a

coreferring nominal chuan in (I8.e) appears with high-topicality, the two begin to form a topic-chain. (For the term 'topic-chain', see Chapter 8.) Similarly, zhege difang 'this place' in (I8.c) is lower in topicality than chuan 'boat'. But when an identical nominal appears at the beginning of the next clause, the two again begin to form a topic-chain. The relationship between Duan Qiao 'Broken Bridge' in (I8.d) and qiao 'bridge' in (I8.e) can only be regarded as lexical cohesion by reiteration (cf. Halliday & Hasan, 1967) without any topical significance.

Finally, we cite another discourse block from a spoken text to illustrate how nominals may become topics by serving the function of contrast.

(I9.a) H~ole, zheyangzi ba yizhiji, banzhiji gei ta qie cheng O.K. this-way BA a-M chicken, half-M chicken GEl it cut into xiao kuai yihou, womenjiu xia guo qu shao. small piece after, we then put-in wok to cook 'O.K. after (we) take a chicken, half a chicken, and cut it into small pieces, we may put (it) in a wok to cook.' b) Zhege shao de shihou, shouxian ne, yao ba ji gei ta chao this cook DE time, first NE, must BA chicken GEl it saute shu Ie. done LE

c) Chao dao limian meiyou shu, danshi waimian ne, yijing bianle saute tiII inside not done, but outside NE, already change-PFV yanse cai keyi. color only-then OK 'Saute till when the outside has changed color, though the inside is not done yet.'

(Ho, 1993:239-240) As part of a recipe, the text has 'you' or 'we' as the main running topic, which appears as zero in all the clauses except the last two in (c). In the last two clauses there are two sub-topics occurring one after the other: limian 'inside' and waimian 'outside'. A noteworthy point about them is that when limian is newly introduced in the first clause of (c), it is not clear at all whether it is serving as a topic.8 Its topical status remains unclear until a contrast expressed by waimian is introduced in the second clause. Evidence for this claim can be found in the fact that the pause

particle ne is more appropriate after waimian 'outside' in the second clause than after limian 'inside' in the first clause.

Examples (I 5)-( 19) above show the application of the prototype approach to topicality in Mandarin Chinese. It is demonstrated that it solves some controversies concerning the topicality of certain nominals and that it explains in a principled way how all nominals can be interpreted as topics or non-topics in a discourse context.

7.3. The Formation and Continuation of a Topic-Three Stages In Section 7.2, we mentioned that some nominals may be introduced to become topics. This section will elaborate on the process of the formation of a topic. The complete process consists of three stages: (i) introduction, (ii) pick-up and (iii) continuation. One might argue that there should also be a termination stage. The termination of a topic, however, is reflected in its non-continuation and/or the introduction and pick-up of a new topic.

When a topic is introduced and goes on without any special morphological or syntactic marking, it is called an unmarked topic. They are the ones that cannot be recognized as a topic when they are first introduced. They become topics only when they are picked up by a coreferring nominal, pronominal, or zero in a subsequent clause. The following text illustrates the formation of such an unmarked topic in its three stages.

(20.a) Luoyang you ge ming genu, Luoyang had M famous song-girl b) 0 j iao Yang Zhuluo, called Yang Zhuluo c) 0 conghui guo ren, intelligent surpass people d) 0 yi yuyan jianqiao guan yu yishi. with language sharp-skilIful top at the-time 'In Luoyang, there was a famous female singer by the name of Yang Zhuluo. She was extremely intelligent and was tops for her quick wit.'

(Shen, 1987:85)

Clause (20.a) introduces two nominals, Luoyang (a place name) and ge ming genu 'a famous female singer'. The latter is picked up in (b) by 0 to be the topic, which continues with the O's in (c) and (d). This is typical of an opening passage ofa story.

It usually begins with a presentative sentence, followed by a description of what has just been presented as new information, i.e. 'a famous female singer', in this case.

Strictly speaking, Ge ming genu 'a famous female singer' in (a) does not really become a topic until the 0 appears in (b), though it is expected to be one. But since the nominal and the 0 are next to each other, clause (a) and (b) are often regarded as one clause and the nominal ge ming genu is mistaken as a topic even before it becomes one.

Two questions arise at this point. (i) How does the hearer know that the first 0 in (b) corefers with ge ming genu 'a famous female singer' rather than Luoyang, the place name? In fact, Luoyang is even more qualified for topic than ge ming genu by their topicality. (ii) Can Luoyang be picked up as a topic by a coreferring expression?

There are two points to make in answer to (i). The first is semantic relations to the predicate in (20.b). As the object nominal is a personal name and the verbjiao identifies the object with the subject, the 0 in the subject position has to refer to a person. It is thus decided that the 0 corefers with the preceding human nominal ge ming genu 'a famous female singer'. Secondly, it is true that in terms of topicality, Luoyang is more likely to become a topic. Yet the purpose of (20.a) as a presentative construction is to introduce something new to be talked about. Thus, it is more natural to go on with what has just been introduced as new information than with the preverbal nominal carrying old information. This brings us to question (ii): Can Luoyang be picked up as a topic by a coreferring expression? The answer is a qualified yes, though it would not be as natural as otherwise. For example, (20.a) may be followed by a clause as in (20') below to make Luoyang into a topic: (20'.a) Luoyang you ge ming genu, Luoynag has M famous song-girl, b) 0 hai you ge wunu, still have M dance-girl c) 0 ye yiyang you mingo also same have fame

In (20'), the 0 in (a) corefers with Luoyang in (b). The passage is admittedly not as natural as (20), but it is by no means impossible. In fact, it would be a lot more natural for (20'.b)-(20'.c) to follow (20) as a whole.

The introduction of a nominal to be a topic, however, may take a different

(21.a) Zuotian yige pengyou jiegei wo yiben shu, yesterdaya-M friend loan-to me a-M book b) wo yiwei 0 hen haokan, I thought very interesting c) jieguo 0 yidian yisi ye meiyou, result a-little meaning also not-have d) suoyi, therefore,

o wo kanle I

jiye, read-PFVa-few-pages

e) 0 jiu bu kan Ie. then not read LE 'A friend loaned me a book yesterday. I thought it would be interesting, (but) it turned out to be boring. So, I read a few pages and stopped (reading it).'

(One modification has been made in the text: The original has two O's in clause (e), one for wo and the other for neiben shu; we have omitted the one for wo just to make the text easier to read.) Four nominals are introduced in (a): zuotian 'yesterday',yige pengyou 'a friend', wo 'I' andyiben shu 'a book'. All of them are eligible for topic. Both wo and yiben shu are selected to be topics to go on with.

The 0 in (b) picks u~ yiben shu as the topic and the O's in (c), (d) and (e) continue on the same topic.

In this text, the topic is not introduced by a presentative sentence but by a narrative clause where more than one nominal is involved.

The establishment of a topic does not always go through the complete process of three stages. One or two of them may sometimes be lacking. An introduction without the other two stages, of course, will not establish a topic firmly enough.

This happens more often in speech than in writing and more often in conversation than in monologues. What happens often is that a nominal is introduced and picked up as topic without being further continued on. But in a narrative, a topic usually goes on longer than just the first two stages, even when there may be some interruption. Such interruption, on the other hand, may occur with an introduction of a new topic without continuing on it very far. Let's look at example (18), reproduced as (22) below, and take it as an illustration for short topic spans.

(22.a) Keshi [Xu Xian] zai you Xihu de shihou ne, but [Xu Xian] at tour West-Lake DE time NE,

buqiao zhenghao fengyu dazuo, xiaqileyulai. unluckily just wind-rain heavy, rain-PFV-INCH 'But when [Xu Xian] was touring the West Lake, there started a rain storm.' b) Ta zuo zai youchuan limian ne, 0 bei yushui lin de hen he sit at pleasure-boat inside NE, by rain-water soak DE very langbei. embarrassing

c) Zhe shi chuan ne, zhenghao daole Gu Shan, daole Hangzhou this time boat NE, happen-to reach-PFV Gu HilI, reach-PFV Hangzhou Xihu de Gu Shan zhege difang.

West-Lake DE Gu HilI this place 'The boat happened to have reached Gu Hill, to have reached Gu HilI, a place on the West Lake in Hangzhou.' d) Zhege difang ne, jiushi you yige hen zhumingde jingzhi, jiaozuo this-M place NE, that-is has a-M very famous scenery, called Duan Qiao, jiao Duan Qiao.

Broken Bridge, called Broken Bridge

e) Ta jiu zai qiao xia bi fengyu. he then at bridge under shelter wind-rain 'He sought shelter from the rain storm under the bridge.'

Xuxian, the male protagonist, forms the main topic of this passage. It appears in the first clause of (a) but is interrupted by fengyu 'wind-rain' in the second clause.

Fengyu, however, does not go on as a topic; only part of it, yu 'rain', is repeated in the next clause in a post-verbal position, which indicates low topicality. The main topic is resumed by the pronoun la 'he' in the first clause of (b) and goes on to the next clause in the form of O. In (c), the main topic is again interrupted by chuan 'boat', which picks up fromyouchuan 'pleasure boat' in (b) as a topic. This new topic is not further continued on but is terminated right away by zhege difang 'this

place' in (d), which picks up from the preceding identical form in (c) as a topic.

This new topic, again, does not go on any further and is terminated by the resumption of the main topic in (e) in the form of la.

In the short passage in (22), the main topic is interrupted twice: by fengyu 'wind-rain' in (a) and by chuan 'boat' in (c). Fengyu is introduced but is not picked up as a topic; chuan is introduced and picked up as a topic but is not continued on any further. The topic chuan is then terminated by zhege difang 'this place' in (d), which picks up the preceding identical form to become a topic. This new topic, without going on any further, is terminated by another resumption of the main topic.

There is another nominal, Duan Qiao 'Broken Bridge' introduced in (d) but it is not picked up as a topic. It rather goes on as a non-topic in the form of qiao 'the bridge' in a prepositional phrase in (e).

This passage thus illustrates three kinds of nominals with regard to being a topic. (i) A nominal may be introduced, picked up and goes on as a topic for a long while. Xuxian in (22) is such a nominal: it is picked up by la and goes on in the form of O. In fact, it is interrupted and resumed more than once. (ii) A nominal may be introduced and picked up as a topic but without going on any further. (You) chuan and zhege difang in (22) are such nominals. (iii) A nominal may be introduced but not picked up as a topic, though it may be referred to later in a nontopical position. Fengyu and Duan Qian are such nominals in (22). This passage also illustrates that it is not always the most eligible nominal that is picked up as the topic.

It is interesting to note that the clauses headed by the main topic form the storyline of the narrative while those headed by the other topics are just asides. These two classes of clauses correspond very well to what is traditionally called foreground and background. Naturally, the background clauses do not stay on a single topic for a long time and they shift from one topic to another as supporting materials to set the scene for the main events to occur in the story-line.

In this section, we have claimed that there are three stages in the formation and continuation of a topic: introduction, pick-up and continuation. Examples (20)-{2 I) illustrate how the process occurs in a text. Example (22) illustrates several facts: (i) the most eligible nominal in a clause is not necessarily picked up as the topic, though it is most likely to be one; (ii) a nominal may just be picked up as a topic without going on any further as such; and (iii) a topic may be interrupted and resumed a number of times.

Most of the topics we have discussed so far are unmarked. There are topics that are marked, i.e. topics accompanied by special morphological and syntactic marking. They behave differently in their formation than those we have discussed and should be considered unusual (hence, the term 'marked') in nature.

Unfortunately, they have been the main subject of discussion in most textbooks and research papers to the exclusion of the unmarked ones. Such an approach has given the impression that they are the normal topics. To correct the wrong impression, we will discuss them in some detail in the next section.

Six types of marked topics are generally discussed. As the topics are clearly marked morphologically or syntactically, they can be easily recognized within the boundaries of the clause or sentence in which they occur without any larger context.

This is the reason why most grammars, especially sentence grammars, use them to demonstrate what a topic is like. As they are specially marked one, they don't really represent the general operation of topic. For this reason, we treat them separately from unmarked topics.

The six types of marked topics are listed and illustrated below. 10 Type I: Double-Nominal Construction. This is perhaps the most general type oftopic marking. It is characterized by two nominals occurring one after the other at the beginning of a clause. II E.g.

(23) Zheke shu, hua xiao, yezi da, 0 bu haokan. this-M tree, flower small, leave big, not good-looking 'This tree, with small flowers and big leaves, is not good looking.'

(Adapted from Li & Thompson, 1981:94) The topic zheke shu 'this tree' is marked by its syntactic position, i.e. as the first of two successive nomina Is at the beginning of a clause. By virtue of its syntactic position, zheke shu is recognized as a topic within the first clause zheke shu, hua xiao. There is no need to go further to another clause to confirm this recognition, though the last clause 0 bu haokan '(it is) not good-looking' does further indicate that zheke shu is the topic. In a sense, the first appearance of zheke shu is not exactly the introduction of a new entity to be picked up or continued on as a topic.

One cannot start a conversation with (23) unless there is a tacit understanding between the speaker and the hearer as to which tree it refers to. The understanding may come from a linguistic or non-linguistic context. In other words, the entity 'this tree' must have already been explicitly or implicitly introduced before (23) can be uttered. As long as a nominal represents' given information' (cf. Chapter 5), it may occur as the topic in this structure whether or not it has been explicitly introduced.

Thus, this type of topic may not go through the stage of introduction in its formation. For a detailed structural description of the double-nominative, see Tsao (1990: 122-149).

Under Type I, there are several sub-types, which vary in the nature of the first nominal or in the form of the second one. They are illustrated below in (24)-(26).

The labels are adopted from Ho (1993 :31-61).

day-day buy groceries, I really not know ought buy what good '(Having to do) grocery shopping every day, I really don't know what to buy.'

(Li & Thompson, 1981:98) b) Zheci shijian, ta shi lao yibei zhong zui you guqi de. this-M event, he be old generation among most have integrity DE 'In this event, he displayed the most moral integrity among the older generation.'

(Ho, 1993:33)

a) Mingtian keneng ta hui lai. tomorrow possible he will come 'Tomorrow it is possible that he will come.' b) Zhongguo de nanfang, tianqi juishi hu qing hu China DE south, weather just-is suddenly clear suddenly 'As for the southern part of China, the weather is full of changes, clearing up and suddenly raining.'

(Ho,

yu. rainy suddenly 1993:37)

a) Zhexie keliande haizi, tamende fumu dou si zai diren de tudao these poor kids, their parents all die at enemy DE butcher-knife zhixia. under 'These poor children, their parents were all butchered by the enemy.'

(Ho,1993:58) b) Zhexie zang dongxi, ni gankuai ba ta na-zou. these dirty stuff, you hurry BA it take-away 'This dirty stuff, take it out right away.'

The examples in (24)-(26) are all isolated sentences. But, the topics in them are easily identified because they are syntactically marked-being the first nominal of a series of two. Other sub-types such as a patient-topic with a zero-subject, are also possible, but we will not go any further into their details. In all cases, the first nominal represents 'given information' and does not go through the first stage of introduction as a topic.

other types (e.g. sentence (26.a) above). In fact, any topic can be followed by a potential pause or pause particle. Nevertheless, a pause or pause particle does explicitly mark a topic.

b) Jiu wo ganggangjiang de nage sumu, ruguo shen dingde zheme as-for I just-now mention DE that number, if God set-DE so duo, you ... zheme duo ren yao dejiu, dagai zai zhexie ren many, have ...this many people need redeem, probably at these people

(27.a) Beijing chengli ya, you ge Gu-Gong.

Beijing city-inside VA, exist MOld-Palace 'Inside Beijing City, there is a Palace Museum.'

dou dejiu de shihou ne, jiu shi Yesu zai lai de shihou. all redeem DE time NE, then be Jesus again come DE time

b) Jianglai de wenti ne, na jiu deng jianglai zai shuo. future DE problem NE, that then wait future then talk 'As for problems of the future, (they) can wait until the future before we deal with them.'

(Chao, 1968:802)

'As far as the number I mentioned just now, i.e. there are so many designated by God to be redeemed, the day they are all redeemed is the day when Jesus will come again.'

(Ho, 1993:233)

Each of the first nominals is followed by a pause particle ya or ne in the examples.

The nominal must either be definite (Beijing chengli 'Inside of Beijing City') or contrastive (jianglai de wenti 'problems of the future'). Sentence (27.b) must follow some statement like 'The current problem can be resolved but...' (Cf. Section 4.3.2.)

Thus, the topics of this type also carries 'given information' and doesn't go through the first stage of topic formation. Admittedly, there are cases where the topic with a following pause particle may not be definite in its strict sense. E.g.

The topic in (29.a), biye hou gan shenme 'what to do after graduation' introduced by zhiyu 'as for', is implied in the previous utterance 'now I am only thinking of fmishing my study'. As the topic carries 'given information', it does not go through a separate first stage of topic formation, i.e. introduction. The topic in (29.b), wo ganggangjiang de nage shumu 'the number that I just mentioned' is preceded by the preposition jiu 'as for'. It functions to pick up on the nominal yige shumu 'a number (of people that God set to redeem)', which is mentioned 14 lines earlier in the text. In other words, the nominal is first introduced but is not picked up as a topic until 14 lines later. Because of the distance, the nominal needs to be repeated (instead of using a pronoun or a zero unifier) pointing out that it was first introduced some time ago, and to be specially marked by a preposition jiu. The introduction stage in the formation of the topics in (29) is quite different from that of the unmarked topics.

(28) yige ren ne, xindi yiding bu neng huai. a-M person NE, heart must not can bad 'A person must not have an evil mind.' where yige ren 'a person' is not exactly definite. However, as the interpretation of the nominal is a generic one, it behaves much like a definite nominal. Another way of looking at the problem is to go through the informativeness level, where a preverbal constituent is low in informative value. (Cf. Section 5.2.) As a result, whether or not the constituent carries given information becomes a moot question.

Type IV: Comparison. It is well known that what is being compared in a Chinese sentence must be expressed as topics. The comparison structure can therefore be considered a marker of topic.

.

Type III: Introduced by Prepositions Like Zhiyu, Duiyu, etc. The topic so mtroduced usually has a pick-up function. It either picks up from something previously introduced or implied, or resumes from an interrupted topic. E.g.

(30.a) Ta lai Taibei bi wo qu Xianggang fangbian. he come Taibei compared-to I go Hong-Kong convenient 'It is more convenient for him to come to Taipei than for me to go to Hong Kong.'

(Tsao, 1990:289)

(29.a) Wo xianzai zhi xiang wancheng xueye. Zhiyu biye hou gan I now only think-of finish study. as-for graduate after do shenme, wo hai mei kaolu. what, I yet not consider

b) Ta lanqiu gen parqlU da de yiyang hao. he basketball and volleyball play DE same well 'He plays basketball as skillfully as volleyball.'

(Adapted from Tsao, 1990:290)

'Now I am only thinking of finishing my study. As to what I will do after graduation, I have no plan yet.'

(Ho. 1993:33)

c) Wo (jintian) meiyou zuotian neme shufu. (today) not-as yesterday that comfortable

I

~

'I am not feeling as well (today) as yesterday.'

(Adapted from Li and Thompson, 1981 :566-7) The entities being compared are considered either primary or secondary topics (Tsao, 1990:289-297). One or both of the two compared items may be newly introduced and become a topic/topics instantaneously through the comparison structure. They do not go through the first stage of introduction before they are picked up as topics.

Type V: The 'Lian ...Dou/Ye' Construction. This construction is used to single out a member of a set that is least expected to fit the context.

31.a) Lao Zhang lian E Yu dou hui shuo.

Old Zhang even Russian also know-how-to speak 'Old Zhang can even speak Russian.' b) Ta lian da zi ye bu renshi jige. he even big character also not know a-few-M 'He doesn't even know the ABC of (Chinese) characters.'

ta dou ting bu dong. he all hear not understand 'Not only can he not understand what other people say; he can't even understand what I say.'

(Tsao, 1990:277) In (31.a), the nominal E Yu 'the Russian language' is introduced by tian ...ye to indicate that among the languages one expects Old Zhang to speak, Russian is probably the last one. In this sense, there is an implicit comparison between 'Russian' and the other languages. In (31.b), the assumption is that da zi 'big characters (i.e. easiest characters)' is the least expected member of the set that he doesn't know. In (31.c), the comparison is explicit: wode hua 'what I say' compared with biren de hua 'what other people say' is the least expected for him not to understand. Tsao (1990:249-278) claims that the nominal introduced by lian ...dou/ye is either a primary or secondary topic. By contrast with other members of the same set, the item introduced by lian ...dou/ye doesn't need any explicit introduction as a topic.

Types IV and V can actually be collapsed under the rubric of 'contrast'. They are, of course, morpho-syntactically marked contrasts with specific senses. There

are other contrasts that are morpho-syntactically unmarked. In the latter case, it is always prosodically marked, i.e. with a contrastive stress. E.g.

(32) Ni bu chi niurou, chi yu ba. you not eat beef, eat fish BA '(If) you don't eat beef, why don't you have fish.'

The contrast is on niurou 'beef and yu 'fish'. There is no syntactic or morphological marking for the contrast except juxtaposition, but at least the second item yu must be stressed. The same proposition can be expressed with syntactic marking as either (a) or (b) in the following: (33.a) Ni bu chi niurou, yu chi ba. you not eat beef, fish eat BA b) Niurou ni bu chi, yu chi ba. beef you not eat, fish eat BA The interpretation of (33), question 'If you don't eat syntactically explicit topic, when there is no such topic,

however, is not a suggestion like (32), but a mild beef, you would eat fish, wouldn't you?' With a as in (33), a suggestion seems to be less likely than as in (32).

Type VI: The Ba- and Bei-Sentences. Both ba- and bei-sentences are considered patient-topicalization devices. The ba-sentence preposes the patient object to be the secondary topic and adds a 'disposal' meaning. The bei-sentence preposes the patient object to be the primary topic and often, though not always, takes on a pejorative meaning. (See, for example, Hsueh 1989, Tsao 1990 and Xing 1993.)

(34.a) Zhe yifan hua zhongyu ba fa shuofu Ie. this one-M talk finally BA him convince LE 'He was finally convinced by this talk.' b) Ta ba Jangzi zhengxiule yi xia, qileqi, ranhou zai maichuqu. he BA house repair-PFV a little, paint-a-paint, afterward then sell-off 'He had the house repaired, painted, and then sold it.'

(Tsao, 1990: 175) (35.a) Wenge qIJIan, shenmeren dou bei zhengguo.

Cultural-Revolution during, everybody all BEl attack-EXP 'During Cultural Revolution, everybody was attacked.'

(Hsueh, 1989: 115)

b) Ta bei ren da shang Ie. he BEl someone hit wound LE 'He was hit and wounded by someone.' c) Qiqiu bei feng chui zou Ie. balloon BEl wind blow away LE 'The balloon was blown away by the wind.'

(Li and Thompson, 1981 :505) The nominals after ba in (34) and those before bei in (35) are all in the patient role, i.e. the entity directly affected by the action of the verb. Apart from their syntactic requirements and semantic interpretations, the two Structures share a common discourse function-making a topic out of the patient. (Cf. Tsao, 1990:168-222; Chu, 1983:206-225) The difference between them is that while the patient in the bei-sentence is a primary topic, the one in the ba-sentence is a secondary one.12 As both patients are interpreted as definite, referential or generic, they must carry given information. They need not go through the introduction stage of topic formation.

Other Structures may also mark patient topic, e.g. the shi ...de construction and the so-called middle voice verbs. The former does not exclusively mark the patient while the latter provides a very weak marking. We will just illustrate them without any discussion.

(36.a) Neiben shu shi Wang Jiaoshou xie de. that-M book SHI Wang Professor write DE 'That book was written by Professor Wang.'

explicit mention in a previous context. It may even come from a dist~nt previous mention or from a contrast of various forms. The contrast ma~ be w~th a known entity or with other members of the same class that the tOPIC entI~ belongs.

Whatever the source, the given inform~tion carried by. the marked t~PICSenables h m to be recognized as topics wIthout demandmg a precedmg ~tage ~f ~:oduction or a following stage of continuation ~ their p~ocess of format~on. ThIs special status of the marked topics ~ives the ~alse Im~resslOn that any tOpICcan be recognized within the clause in whIch a topIcal nom mal o~curs. As w~ have seen . S ec t'10n 7 ••3 1, the more usual topic can not be recogmzed unless It serves m fi to connect two or more clauses. More often, it c?nnects m?re th~ ~o clauses to orm 'a topic chain'. We will discuss this last notIon of tOPICcham m the next chapter.

This chapter started with an examination of the s~milari:ies.and differences between subject and topic, in English and in Chinese. WhIle :h~lr ~I~erences had often been stressed in the research literature, we found many slmllantJes be~een them. ~r~m these similarities a strategy was developed to eliminate non-es~entIal. characte:lstIcs of topic and an approach is mapped out to arrive at a more relIable lIst of attrIbutes of topic. .. h The approach that this chapter adapts IS essentIally that of Chu. (1.993~t e prototype approach. In this appro~ch, th~ attributes that define a.tOpICm Chmese are hierarchically organized, as laId out m (11), repeated below m (37).

b) Ta shi zuo huoche lai de. he SHI sit train come DE 'He came BY TRAIN/It is by train that he came.' c) Neiben shu chuban Ie. that-M book publish LE 'That book waslhas been published.'

Sentence (36.a) marks the patient as the topic, but (36.b) marks the agent as the topic. In (36.c) neiben shu 'that book' serves the patient role and as the topic at the same time through the middle voice verb chuban 'to publish' but there is no overt marking for the topic.

In this section, we have discussed several marked topics. The common characteristic they share is that they all carry given information. The sources for their given information may vary widely. It may come from tacit understanding between the speaker and the hearer or it may come from implicit indication or

a. Being a nominal b. Serving as an interclausallink

a. Being specific/referential b. Occupying the sentential-initial/preverbal

.. posItIon

Bearing no selectional relations to the predicate verb A prototypical topic possesses all the five attributes while a le~s prototypi~al one possesses fewer. This approach resolves certain controverSIes concemmg the

problem of whether a given nominal should be recognized as a topic or a subject. .The ~ormation ofa topic is seen in its three stages-introduction, pick-up and contmuatIOn. Though a topic usually goes through all three stages, some topics do not. . A ~pecial effort is made ~o distinguish between marked and unmarked topics.

It ISclaImed that marked tOpICSbehave differently than unmarked ones and that it is a mistake to take the unmarked ones as typical of all topics. As marked topics are ?v~rt.ly marked b~ special signals, they can be easily recognized within the mdlVldual clauses m which they occur without any larger context. Moreover, they ?ften d~ not go thr?ugh the first stage of introduction because they carry old mformatlOn from varIOUSsources. Both these facts necessarily serve to obscure the most fundamental function of a topic--clause linking. Yet, discussion of topic in the literature mostly focuses on the marked ones, very often to the exclusion of the unmarked .on~s, for the simple reason that the marked ones can be conveniently handle? wIthI~ a sentence or even a clause. This unfortunate practice has created a false unpresslon that the marked topics are the typical cases. The unmarked ones have thus been largely neglected in the literature. To correct this misdirection of study, this chapter has devoted a long section to the distinction between marked and unmarked topics in their behavior. .

To c~nclu~e the chapter, we analyze a longer text with regard to its topic mtroductIon, pIck-up and continuation. The text is adapted from Liu Mingchen (1992:3 I0-314). The indices in subscript indicate coreference.

(38.a) Bo Yu Pingbo de liangpian wenz/langj fu-shang. refute Yu Pingbo DE two-M article enclose 'Enclosed are the two articles refuting Yu Pingbo.' b) OJ qing yi yue. please one read 'Please read them.' c) Zh.e shi sanshi-duo nian lai xiang suowei Hong Lou Meng thIS be 3D-more year since to so-called Red Chamber Dream yanjiu quanwei zuojia de cuowu guandian de renzhende kaihuo. study authority writer de wrong view DE serious open-fire 'This is the first time over thirty years that a serious attack has been levelled against the wrong views of the so-called authorities on the study of The Dream of the Red Chamber. ' d) Zuoz/lej shi liangge Qingniantuan yuan. author be two-M Youth-League member

'The authors are two Youth League members.' e) Tamen· xie xin to Wenyi Bao, they J write letter to Literary Gazette, 'They wrote to The Literary Gazette,' t) O· qing wen ke bu keyi piping Yu Pingbo, J please ask may not may criticize Yu Pingbo, 'to ask if they could criticize Yu Pingbo,' g) O. bei zhizhibuli.

J BEl put-aside-not-care '(but) were ignored.' h)

"ramen. budeyi xiexin gei tamende· muxiao-- Shandong Daxue de J J U· . DE they have-to write to their alma-mater-Shandong nIVersIty ~I

laoshi, teacher 'They were forced to write to their teachers at Shandong University-their alma mater,' i) O· huodele zhichi, J • recelve-PFV support '(and) received support' j) OJbing zai gaixiao kanwu Wen-Shi-Zhe. . and at that-school journal Literature-History-Philosophy

shang on

dengchule tamende wenz/langk .... publish-PFV their article ... '(and) had their article ...published in the university journal LiteratureHistory-Philosophy. ' k) Went; you huidao Beijing. problem again return-to Beijing 'The problem (, however,) returned to Beijing.'

1) You ren yaoqiu O?jiang ci wenk zai Renmin Rib~o zhua~zai exist people ask get this article at People Darty repnnt 'It was suggested that the article be reprinted in The People's Daily'

yexu keyi kaizhanqilai Ie. perhaps can open-up LE

m) yiqi O? yinqi zhenglun, so-that solicit debate 'to start a debate,'

'It looks like that a struggle against the Hu-Shih school of bourgeois idealism in the field of classical literature, which has poisoned (the minds of) the youth for more than thirty years, may be under way.'

n) O? zhankai piping. open-up criticism '(and) launch (a campaign of) criticism.'

0) O? you. bei mou~ie ren yi zhongzhong liyou geiyi fandui, , agaIn BE~ certaIn people :vith various reason give objection (but) was objected to by certaIn people with various reasons' , p) O? buneng shixian; cannot realize '(and) could not be carried out;'

v) er 'darenwu' p wangwang bu zhuyi, . but 'big-shot' often not pay-attentIOn 'while the 'big-wigs' not only don't pay any attention (to it),' w) 0 bing wangwangjiayi zulan. p further often impose obstruction 'but also try to obstruct it.'

q) jieguo chengli tuoxie, result establish compromise, 'in the end a compromise was reached' ,

x) Tamen tong zichanjieji zuojia zai weixinlun fangmianjiang tongyi they p with bourgeois writer at idealism respect talk united

r) O?bei yunx~ zai Wenyi Bao zhuanzai ci wen k' BEl permIt at Literary Gazette reprint this article 'permission was given to reprint this article The Literary Gazette.' s) Guangming Ribao de Wenxue Yichan Ian you fabiaole Guangming Daily DE 'Literary Heritage' column also publish-PFV zh.e liangge qingnian de bo Yu Pingbo Hong Lou Meng thIs two-M youth DE refute Yu Pingbo Red Chamber Dream Yanjiu yi shu de wenzhang.

Study a book DE article

zhenxian, front 'They are in a united front with the bourgeois writers on the question of idealism,' y) 0 ganxin zuo zichanjieji de fuluo.

P willing be bourgeois DE captive '(and) become willing captives of the bourgeoisie.' z) Zhe tong yingpian Qinggong Mishi he Wuxun Zhuanr fangying this with film Qing-Court Secret and Wuxun Story play

'The "Litera~ Heritage" column of The Guangming Daily carried .~nother artIcle of the two young men refuting Yu Pingbo's Studies on The Dream of Red Chamber".' t) Kanyangzi z/J.egefandui zai gudai wenxue lingyu duhai qingnian seem thls-M oppose at classic literary area poison youth

sanshiyu nian de HU-Sh.ipai zichanjieji weixinlun de douzheng, 3D-plus year DE Hu-Shl camp Bourgeois

u) Shiqing shi liangge 'xiaorenwu' 0 zuoqilai de, matter be two-M 'small-potato' do-start DE 'The whole thing was set going by two "nobodies",'

idealism

DE struggle,

shihou de qingxing jihu shi xiangtong de, time DE situation almost be same DE 'The case was almost the same as when the films The Inside Stories of the Qing Court and The Life of WU Xun were played,' aa) Or bei ren chengwei aiguozhuyi yingpian.

BEl people call patriotism film

O?buyingdang dui tameny touxiang . . not-should bb) Er shiji shi maiguozhuyi yingpian Qinggong Mishi s zai but in-fact be treason film Qing-Court Inside-Stories at quanguo whole-country

fangying zhihou, zhijin 0 s meiyou bei pipan. play after, up-to-now didn't BEl criticize

'In fact, the Inside Stoires of the Qing Courts has not been criticized since its nation-wide showing. ' cc) Wuxun Zhuant suiran pipanle, zhijin 0t meiyou yinchu jiaoxun.

Wuxun Story though criticize-PFV, up-to-now didn't lead-to lesson 'Though The Life of Wuxun was criticized, yet nobody has learned any lesson from it.' dd) You chuxianle O? rongren Yu Pingbo weixinlun he zulan again appear-PFV tolerate Yu Pingbo idealism and obstruct' 'xiaorenwu'de hen you shengqi de pipan wenzhang de qiguai shiqing. small-potato' DE very have life DE criticize article DE strange thing '(Now) this strange thing has happened that (people) are tolerating Yu Pingbo's idealism and trying to suppress the energetic critique by "nobodies".' ee) Zhe shi zhide women zhuyi de. this be worth our attention DE 'This is something worth our attention.' ft) Yu Pingbo zheyilei de zichanjieji zhishijenziy, dangranshi O? yingdang Yu Pingbo this-kind DE bourgeois intellectual, of-course should dui tameny caiqu tuanjie taidu de. to them adopt united attitude DE 'To the kind of bourgeois intellectuals like Yu Pingbo, of course, (we) should form a united front,' gg) dan O? yingdang pipan tamendey duhai qingnian de cuowu sixiang, but should criticize their poison youth DE wrong idiology,

to them

surrender

'but (we) should criticize their wrong ideology that has poisoned the youth and (we) should not surrender to them.'

Some explanations are in order.

One obvious anomaly is the 'O;in many of the clauses. It indicates that the position should be filled by a nominal but the reference of such a nominal is vague, general or non-referential. It is in some sense equivalent to the English impersonal pronoun 'you', 'they' or 'we'. In many cases, the clause would be expressed in the passive form in English. We thus do not count them as topics. For example, there are three such markings in (ff)-(gg). They are translated as 'we', but could very well be 'people', 'comrades', etc.

Certain nominals have a definite interpretation when they appear for the first time in the text. They are zhe 'this' in (c), (z) and (ee), wenti 'the problem' in (k), and those portions in bold but without indexing in (s), (t) and (u), each referring to some previous event either implied in the context or through tacit understanding of the reader. All are qualified to be topics but none of them is picked up as a topic to go on. Other first-time definite nominals like bo Yu Pingbo de liangpian wenzhang 'the two articles refuting Yu Pingbo' in (a) and zuozhe 'the authors' in (d) have their sources in previous contexts. As the text is not the very beginning of a piece of writing, the first clause follows from some previous mention of refuting Yu. Thus, the first nominal carries given information and is interpreted as definite. Otherwise, it would have appeared after the predicate verb fu-shang 'be enclosed'. The other nominal zuozhe 'the authors' is obviously implied in wenzheng 'the articles' in (a) and carries given information, too. The given information they carry, however, doesn't necessarily guarantee them to become full-fledged topics, though it is most likely that both of them will. Within the individual clauses where they appear, there are some qualities to indicate that they will become topics. In the first case in (a), the nominal is a preposed object and as it is the only nominal in the clause, it has to be the topic to be continued on in the text if any cohesion is to be achieved. It is conceivable, however, that clause (d), instead of clause (b), might follow (a) directly. If so, bo Yu Pingbo de liangpian wenzhang 'the two articles refuting Yu Pingbo' would not become a topic. The continuity (i.e. cohesion) between wenzhang 'article' and zuozhe 'author' would have to rely on the fact that articles have authors. In fact, clause (d), as it is, does refer back to the mention of wenzhang in (a) to achieve continuity. The nominal zuozhe 'author' in (d), however, is not yet a topic until it is picked up by tamen 'they' in (e). The same topic goes on all the way through clause (j) by means of the anaphors 0 and tamen with a 'j' index. The use of tamen instead of 0 is a strategy of 'paragraphing', which will be discussed in the next chapter.

Other indexed topics start with xiaorenwu 'small potatoes' in (u), darenwu 'big

shots' in (v), Qinggong Mishi 'The Inside Stories of the Qing Court' and Wuxun Zhuan 'The Life ofWuxun' in (z) and Yu Pingbo zheyilei de zichanjieji zhishifenzi 'the kind of bourgeois intellectuals like Yu Pingbo' in (ft). When they first appear in the text, there is nothing to warrant that they, though more often definite than not, will be topics. In most cases, they are picked up by either a pronoun or a 0 to become a topic. Sometimes, the topic goes on further, e.g. clause (v) through (y) where darenwu 'big shots' is the topic. Other times, it does not go on any further, e.g. xiaorenwu 'small potatoes' in (u), which is recognizable as a topic only by the contrast provided in the next clause. The topical status of the tamen's in (ft) and (gg) may seem questionable because they are not even in preverbal positions. But, as long as they serve a linking function between clauses and there are no other obvious nominals or anaphors competing with them for topical status, they can be considered topics. (The O?'s are non-topics.) This is one of the reasons why the clause-initial or preverbal position as a topical attribute is placed on the second tier of the hierarchy in (37).

Another set of nomina Is serve to link between clauses but do not occur in clause-initial or preverbal positions are tamende wenzhang 'their article' in U) and ci wen 'this article' in (I) and (r). But they have been disrupted by other equally eligible though non-topical nominals and those O;s. They therefore have to appear as full lexical nouns instead of any other anaphorical form and can not be counted as topics without special markings or without going through the process of topic formation.

There are certain problems in interpreting such nominals as you ren 'there are people' in clause (I) with regard to the question whether they are picked up as topics by, for instance, the 0 in (m) or any subsequent one. We will refrain from going any further on this problem for fear of deviating too far from the main theme of discussion. In sum, we have demonstrated several points by the text in (38). (i) Normally, there are more unmarked topics than marked ones. (ii) When a nominal first appears, there is no guarantee that it will become a topic even when it carries given information. (iii) Topics may go on for a short span of time (i.e. within two clauses) or for a longer span (i.e. through more clauses). But no topics serve through one clause only with the exception of marked ones, e.g. xiaorenwu 'small potatoes' in (u), which is recognized as a topic by contrast and, strangely enough, seems to carry new information. The seeming contradiction can be resolved by the fact that a topic can be high in the value of informativeness.

I. Hockett (personal communication) modestly attributed the use of the term topic to the joint initiation ofY. R. Chao and himself.

2. This characterization is a composite of some non-technical definitions such as in Jespersen (1965) and Curme (1947).

3. The reason for designating the subject of the second clause, rather than the object of the first clause, as a marginal topic will become clear when we discuss the introduction and continuation of topic in Section 7.3.

4. Example (10.d) is cited from a long text used by Ho (1993). The text is twelve and a half pages long in the original transcription with word-to-word translation (pp. 221-233). The alleged theme/topic appears in the middle ofp. 232 but the nearest previous mention of shengjing 'the Bible' is in the first line of p.

231, i.e. one and a half pages earlier. Therefore, if the topic serves a linking function, it is not a textual one. Since the title of the text is 'Christians' Belief, 'the Bible' is derivable from the discourse theme, i.e. the theme of the whole text. But, here, Ho is treating it as an utterance theme, which, according to Ho himself, is two levels away from the discourse theme.

5. You gejishi haozi is a dialect form for you hao jishi ge 'to have quite a few tens of them. ' 6. This passage is from a story about Zhu Zhishan, a well-known writer-painter in the Ming Dynasty. In this story, he was commissioned by a corrupt and wealthy Magistrate to do a painting and he asked a high price for it.

7. This discourse passage is taken from a spoken text on 'the Legend of the White Snake' collected in Ho (1993) for his own research. Some modifications have been made, such as the omission of some of the so-called hedges. But, none of them should affect our point of discussion.

8. The topical status can be made clearer at this point by an anticipatory contrastive stress in speech. Unfortunately, there is no such indication in the original text.

9. The choice between a pronoun and a zero is a problem dealt with in Li (1985), Chen (1986) and Xu (1995). We will summarize them in Chapter 8.

10. They represent a composite of marked topics from Li and Thompson (1981), Tsao (1990) and Ho (1993).

11. As a matter off act, more nominals can occur in this position, in which case more than one topic is recognized in a hierarchical structure. Cf. Chu (1983 :225-8).

12. The reasons for Tsao (1990) to recognize the secondary topic as different from the primary one are syntactic and semantic. But, if he is correct, it should logically follow that it is more natural to continue on a primary topic than on a secondary one.

104. A Mandarin Chinese Discourse Grammar-What Be Like?

2.2.3.1. Semantic Interpretation of -Zhe and Verb Type 2.2.3.2. Syntactic Interpretation of -Zhe 2.2.3.3. Pragmatics and -Zhe 2.2.3 A. Summary 2.2.4. The Perfective Aspect Marker -Le 2.2.5. The Verbal Suffix -Le in Discourse 2.2.5.1. Recent Pragmatic/Discourse Studies of -Le 2.2.5.2. -Le as a Peak Marker 2.2.5.3. -Le as an 'Anteriority' Marker 2.2.504. -Le and Monosyllabic Activity Verb 2.2.5.5. The Non-Occurrence of -Le: Verbs of Saying and Verbs with a Classical Flavor..

2.2.5.6. Summary 2.2.6. The Multi-Perspective Nature of -Le

It Should

1.6. A Sketch of the Language 1.6.1. Phonology 1.6.2. Morphology 1.6.2.1. Inflectional Affixes 1.6.2.2. Derivational Affixes 1.6.2.3. Compounding 1.6.3. Syntax 1.6.3.1. Word Order.

1.6.3.2. 'Subject' vs. 'Topic' 1.6.3.3. Special Constructions

75 76 77

9

ll ll 13 13 17 20 22 23 24 27

204. The Discourse Network of Aspect Marking 2.4.1. Summary of Aspectual Functions 204.2. Application

79 79 80

3.1. Modality, Modality Adverbs and Connectives 3.1.1. Modality 3.1.2. Modality Adverbs in Mandarin Chinese 3.1.3. The Connective Nature of Modality Adverbs 3.104. Summary

88 88 89 91 94

3.2. Modality Adverbs and Their Discourse Function 3.2.1. Jui and Cai 3.2.2. Bing, Dao and Ye 3.2.3. You, Hai and Zai 2.2. Verbal Affixes: Aspect-Marking and Other Functions 2.2.1. The Experiential-Guo and the Inchoative -Qilai 2.2.1.1. Experience as a Viewpoint..

2.2.1.2. Experiential Sentence as State 2.2.1.3. Inchoative as a Viewpoint...

2.2.2. The Progressive Zai- and the Durative -Zhe 2.2.2.1. Previous Treatments 2.2.2.2. Problems and Some Solutions 2.2.3. Durative -Zhe and Progressive Zai- in Discourse

53 54 57 60 61 65 66 67 71 74

37 38 .38 41 .44 A5 45 48 51

94 95 102 l07

4.1.1. Interrogation by Ma and by Other Particles 4. I .1.1. The Negative Ma-Question 4.1.1.2. Differences Between Ma-Question and V-Not- V Question 4.1.1.3. Other 'Question' Particles-A/Ya, Ba and Ne 4.1.2. The Change-of-State Particle Le 4.1.3. The Presuppositional Particle Me

12 I 122

4.5. Variety of Functions of Sentence-Final Particles-A Summary

184

122 123 126 130

4.2. Modality Functions 4.2.1. Speaker's Uncertainty: Ba 4.2.1.1. Li and Thompson's 'Soliciting Agreement' Account.

4.2.1.2. The 'Speaker's Uncertainty' ProposaL 4.2.1.3. The Pause Particle Ba 4.2.1.4. Summary 4.2.2. Personal Involvement: A/Ya 4.2.2. I. Functions Identified by Chao and Dow 4.2.2.2. Li and Thompson: Reduced Forcefulness 4.2.2.3. 'Personal Involvement' 4.2.3. Insistence: Me 4.2.3.1. Chappell: Obviousness, Disagreement and Indignation 4.2.3.2. From Factuality to Insistence 4.2.3.3. Summary

132 .l32

4.3. Discourse Functions 4.3.1. End of Discourse: Le 4.3.2. Inter-Clausal/Sentential Linking: Ne 4.3.2.1. Li and Thompson: Response to Expectation 4.3.2.2. Alleton: Appeal to Listener's Active Participation 4.3.2.3. King: Evaluator of Background Information 4.3.2.4. Ne as a Particle ofInter-Clausal/Sentential Linking 4.3.2.5. Summary 4.3.3. Obviousness: Me

153 154 158

133 134 137 139 139 139 141 142 145

5.1. Given and New Information 5.1.1. Information Status and Syntactic Correlates 5.1.2. Between Given vs. New and Definite vs.

Indefinite 5.1.3. Can Given Information Be Used To Inform?Source vs. Management..

5.3. Theme, Topic, Focus and Contrast in Information Structure 5.3.1. Theme, Topic, Contrast, and Their Informative Value 5.3.2. Focus and Contrast as Means ofInformation Management.

188 189 190 197

207 207 210

145 147 151

158 160 163 166 175

176

4.4. Interactions Between Semantics, Syntax and Pragmatics .... 178 4.4.1. Perfectivity, Change of State and End of Discourse .. 178 4.4.2. Presupposition, Insistence and Obviousness .l82

6.1. Grounding, Information, Subordination, and Their Correlation 6.1.1. Background and Foreground 6.1.2. Information, Grounding and Subordination

218 218 220

6.2. The Grounding Status of Subordination in Chinese 6.2.1. Relative Clauses 路 6.2.2. Subordinate Conjunctions 6.2.3. Nominalization 6.2.4. 'Non-Finite' Verb Forms 6.2.5. Residual Structures

226 226 231 233 235 路 238

7.1. Topic and Subject-Their Similarities and Differences 7.1.1. Topic and Subject in Mandarin Chinese 7. I .2. Towards Defining the Topic

247 248 250

7.3. The Formation and Continuation ofa Topic-Three Stages 7.3.1. The Formation of Unmarked Topics 7.3.2. The Formation of Marked Topics

26 I 26 I 265

8.3. Major Researchers on Chinese Anaphora 8.3. I. Li on Anaphora and Discourse Structure 8.3.1.1. Syntactic and Semantic Restrictions 8.3. 1.2. Discourse Needs 8.3.2. Chen on Anaphora and Referent Tracking 8.3.2. I. Continuity and Interference 8.3.2.2. Negligibility and Discourse Saliency 8.3.2.3. Minor and Major Breaks 8.3.204. Noteworthiness and Difficulty for Identification...............................................

8.3.2.5. Lexical Incompatibility and Syntactic Parallelism 8.3.3. Xu on Anaphora and Its Resolution 8.3.3.1. Accessibility Marking 8.3.3.2. Co-Topic, Expected Topic and Topic Stack............................................................

8.304. Summary

284 285 286 288 292 292 294 295 296 298 298 298 300 303

804.1. Refinements of the Theories, Non-Topical PA's and Syntactic Requirements: A Sample Case 305 804.2. NA in Non-Topical Position: Syntax and Pragmatics 313 804.3. Anaphora and Point of View 316

9. I. The Topic Chain 9. I. I. Topic Chain as a Discourse Unit...

9.1.2. Topic Chain as a Syntactic Category 9.1.3. Issues Concerning Topic Chain 9. 1.3. I. The First Link 9. I .3.2. Embedding Within a Topic Chain 9. I .3.3. Telescopic Chain 9.1.304. Topic Chain as a Unit in Syntax or Discourse?

9. I A. Summary

32 I 322 325 327 327 330 332 337 338

9.2. More About Topic Chain 9.2. I. Motivations for Topic Chain 9.2.2. Beyond Topic Chain

338 339 351

9.3. Toward Defining the Chinese SENTENCE 9.3. I. Clause and Textuality 9.3.2. Coordination and Subordination 9.3.3. Non-Conventional Backgrounding in ClauseCombining 9.3.3. I. Conjunctive Adverbs 9.3.3.2. Verbal Form 9.3.3.3. Background to Foreground Progression (BFP) 9.304. 'Sentence' -Final Particles

353 354 356 360 36 I 364 366 368

10.1. Between SENTENCEs 10.1.1. Lexical Cohesion 10.1.2. Rhetorical Relations

385 385 393

10.2. The Paragraph: Discourse Theme and Paragraph Boundary 401 10.2.1. The Discourse Theme 401 10.2.2. How Paragraph Boundaries Are Identified 404 10.2.2.1. Semantic Incompatibility .405 10.2.2.2. Appearance of 'Controlling' Phrase of the Same Category .405 10.2.2.3. Switch ofViewpoint.. .407 10.2.2.4. Appearance of Anaphoric Phrase 407 10.2.2.5. Difference in Style of Writing 408 10.2.2.6. End-of-Scope Description 409 10.2.2.7. Summary 409 10.3. Discourse Markers in Spoken Mandarin 10.3.1. Miracle on Hao, Keshi (Danshi, Buguo) and Na(me) 10.3.2. Yang on Na and Wang on Ranhou

411 411 .413

11.1. The Running Theme 11.2. Grammatical Roads That Lead to Discourse Structure 11.3. Further Issues and Outlook

416 418 419

INTRODUCTION: BETWEEN GRAMMAR AND DISCOURSE

Researchers in Chinese grammar have long recognized the limitations of the Western theoretical framework of syntax that has been imposed on the study of Chinese grammar since Ma Jianzhong's Ma Shi Wen Tong toward the end of the 19th century. For example, Chao (1968) adopts the notion of 'topic' instead of the Western 'subject' as one of the immediate constituents of the Chinese sentence.!

Since then, topic has become a familiar term to most grammarians in the characterization of Chinese and other similar languages in spite of the lack of a precise definition for it. Through the development of Chinese grammatical study in the past twenty years or so, 'topic' has been utilized to create further functional notions, such as 'topic prominency' (Li and Thompson, 1976), 'topic chain' (Tsao, 1979), 'secondary topic' (Tsao, 1990), and many others. Topic structures in Chinese are also well recognized and worked on in the G-B theory (Li, 1990: 197-200). They all represent a departure from the mainstream Western linguistic thought and a new direction for Chinese linguistics.

While the tremendous amount of work done on 'topic' has certainly helped answer many structural and functional questions in Chinese grammar, there are a lot more pr.oblems that can be raised concerning the further understanding and explanatIOn of the grammar of the language. For instance, are there other functions for th.e :erbal suffixes, such as Ie and zhe, than their aspectual marking function?

Why ISIt that adverb sets such as you, zai, and hai are interchangeable in isolated clauses while ~hey are not always interchangeable in larger contexts despite their near synonymIty (Chen, 1993)? Why is it that the third-person pronouns ta and tamen tend to occur less frequently in Chinese than their counterparts in many West~~ langu~ges? ~ow can a Chinese 'sentence' be given a more precise defimtlOn than expressmg a complete thought' while English and other Western lan~uages. seem to have ~ better structural definition for it? Why is it that many natIve ~hmese grammanans have perceived the Chinese language as having a predommantly liushuiju (literally, 'flowing-water sentence') structure2 as distinguished fro~ other Western types of sentences? These are, of course, just a few of the questIOns that may be raised within the context of current research in Chinese grammar. Attempts have been made to explain such facts but, unfortunately, many of them have only appealed to linguistic bias and conjecture through native intuition (Cf. Shen, 1988).

Underlying all those questions, however, there is one fundamental problem with