The Distribution Performance Of Topic Structures In Chinese

Based on the corpus of spoken Chinese and written Chinese,this paper investigates the distribution performance of marked topic structures in Chinese.On the foundation of previous studies,this paper defines the scope of topic structures in this research,and makes a more detailed and specific classification of topic structures.In addition,this paper also pays attention to some dimensions which the previous researches are never or seldom concerned about,such as the categories of topics,the length of topics,and the semantic types of topic structures.The paper finds some shared characteristics between spoken and written Chinese:1.In Chinese,dangling topic structures are widely distributed,and the use frequency is higher than that of argument topic structures.2.As for Chinese argument topic structures,topicalization structures occur more frequently than dislocation structures,and subjects are more likely to be topicalized and dislocated than objects.3.In Chinese,the most frequently used device for topic marking is intonational pause.4.Most of the topics are noun phrases.5.The length of topics is usually within ten syllables.6.In topic structures,episodic sentences occur more frequently than generic sentences.7.Generally,most of the sentential topic chains exhibit the pattern of“TOP… COM1… COM2”.8.The sequence of main topics in multi-topic structures is inclined to be “dangling topics > argument topics”.In addition,this paper also finds some differences between spoken and written Chinese: 1.The occurrence frequency of topic structures in spoken Chinese is higher than that in written Chinese.2.As for the dangling topic structures,the topics providing spacio-temporal information occur far more frequently than those providing background information in spoken Chinese,but there is only slight difference between them in written language.3.While in spoken Chinese,particles are the most frequently used topic markers,prepositions are the most frequently used topic markers in written language.4.The average length of topics in written Chinese is slightlylonger than that in spoken Chinese.5.The proportion of episodic sentences in spoken Chinese is greater than that in written language,speaker are more likely to talk about particular events.6.This paper also finds afterthought topic structure,a special type of topic structures existed in spoken Chinese.Taken together,the results show that: 1.In regards to topicalization,subjects are more accessible than objects which accords with the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy.2.As for the strategies of topicalization,subjects are more inclined to use resumptive pronouns than objects which differs from the performance in relativization.3.Topic structures can occur in subordinate clauses,including relative clauses.