A cognitive-functional approach to topic constructions in Beijing Mandarin

Mandarin Chinese has long been accepted as a topic-prominent language. However, a consensus has never been reached on how to define or characterize the notion of topic. Given the pragmatic orientation of the notion and the heterogeneity of topic-comment constructions, a cognitive-functional approach has been adopted in this research to analyze a spoken corpus of Beijing Mandarin. On the basis of what has been found about structurally identified topics in the corpus, I have argued that topic constructions are best taken as specific instantiations of the schema of Conceptual Reference Point for the ensuing comments.;The investigation into the discourse use of several high frequency pause particles, namely ne, ba, ma, a (and its phonetic variants), and two lexical topic markers, i.e., dehua and laijiang , shows that they, like Japanese wa or eyebrow raise in ASL, are all polysemous: they fulfill different discourse functions by marking topics of different semantic roles and information statuses. These topic markers are also observed to occur successively and co-occur with each other in topic marking. The richness in topic markers and topic marking manners further evidences topic as a complex category that demands a schematic characterization.;Following detailed analysis of topic instantiations in the spoken corpus, a schematization of topic as a complex linguistic category is expounded first horizontally then vertically. Topic as a schema is then characterized as follows: topics of all semantic roles may fulfill the function of conceptual reference point in spontaneous speech, and the reference point may sometimes be objective, especially when the relationship between topic and its target referent(s) resembles some objective ones, such as the possessive or the part-whole relationship.;Spoken data are more indicative of online processing than are written texts. Taking advantage of this, I have examined how pauses and pause particles are interrelated with topic marking and topic verbalization. A comparison between marked grammatical subjects and unmarked ones has revealed that the former are more heavily coded. Following the iconicity principle or the accessibility theory as proposed by Givon (1983), Ariel (1988, 1990), etc., topics convey more information than subjects.