Research On The Topic Stucture In Lahu Language

Lahu language belongs to Yi branch of Tibetan-Burman group of Sino-Tibetan family. Its word order is SOV. Its main means to express grammatical meaning is word order and function word. Topic sentence of the Lahu language is an independent sentence. Based on the field work from masterpieces and research results, this paper does the synchronic description for topic structure of Lahu language from many aspects. We hope this study can give some reference to the study of Tibeto-Burmese grammar.This article consists of six parts:The former part is a foreword which mainly focuses on the brief introduction of Lahu people and Lahu language, research of Topic structures in Lahu language, the meaning and content of Topic structures in Lahu language as well as the methods.The first chapter introduces how a topic structure comes into being in Lahu language and topic composition of Lahu language as well as the difference between subject and topic. The basic structure of Topic sentence in Lahu is"Topic + lε³³+ Statement". The auxiliary word"lε³³"is the topic marker .Topic in the Lahu language belongs to syntax; so does subject to pragmatics.The second chapter mainly introduces the semantic classification of topic structure in Lahu language. According to different semantic relations, topic structure of Lahu language can be divided into six genres: Conference relations topic structure, concerned relations topic structure, Split type topic structure,complex sentence topic structure, copy-type structure.The third chapter is about the information characteristics of Lahu topic structure. It is pointed out that the topic of Lahu language is known information and definite.The forth chapter analyzes the topicalization means of topic of Lahu language. There are three main means, such as, forward movement of topic, topic marker, pronouns and resumptive gap.The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the main contents and viewpoints of the whole thesis and prose its imperfections and some points which still need to make further study .