三类非典型主题及其主题标记的功能

Three Types of Atypical Topic and the Function of Their Markers

文章在详细讨论了主题与主题标记的结构与功能等概念的基础上,主要对动词的修饰成分后,句子主要动词、句末动词以及整个VP后,和名词的前置定语后等三类一般被认为不能出现主题标记的小句结构位置进行了考查。研究结果显示,作为主题优先型语言的汉语在主题的选择上是相当灵活的,小句内的各个独立成分后一般都可加主题标记。上述三类小句位置加主题标记后,相应成分应看作非典型主题,并且有突出对比其后焦点的功能。文章结论是:主题标记应出现在基于充分认知背景且不处于句末的完整的句法成分后。

Chinese is believed to be a topic-prominent language with topic markers, which embody topic functions, as its unique property. Studies of restrictions on the distribution of topic markers help us reveal different topic prominence levels of varieties within a certain language. Three clausal positions, namely complement positions of （1） verbal modifiers, （2） main verbs, clausal final verbs and complete VPs, and （3） preposed attributes of NPs, which are commonly believed to reject topic markers, are examined in this paper. It is found that any syntactic category is flexible to occupy the topic position, which, therefore, can be followed by topic markers. The above three categories with topic markers attached, are looked as atypical topics in this paper. The study concludes that given a cognitive background, topic markers can be distributed after any syntactic category in any （except the final） clausal position.