topic (n.)

A term used in SEMANTICS and GRAMMAR as part of an alternative binary characterization of SENTENCE STRUCTURE to that traditionally found in the SUBJECT/PREDICATE distinction; the opposite term is COMMENT. The topic of a sentence is the entity (person, thing, etc.) about which something is said, whereas the further statement made about this entity is the comment. The usefulness of the distinction is that it enables general statements to be made about the relationships between sentences which the subject/predicate distinction (along with other contrasts of this type) obscures. The topic often coincides with the subject of a sentence (e.g. A visitor/ is coming to the door), but it need not (e.g. There’s the driver/ who gave you a lift), and, even when it is a subject, it need not come first in a sentence (e.g. John Smith my name is). It is sometimes referred to as the ‘psychological subject’. Some languages mark the topic of a sentence using PARTICLES (e.g. Japanese, Samoan). The topic/comment contrast is, however, sometimes difficult to establish, owing to the effects of INTONATION (which has a ‘competing’ INFORMATION-signalling function), and in many types of sentence the analysis is more problematic, such as in COMMANDS and QUESTIONS. Topicalization takes place when a CONSTITUENT is moved to the front of a sentence, so that it functions as topic, e.g. The answer I’ll give you in a minute.

The phrase topic sentence is used in traditional studies of the structure of paragraphs, to refer to the sentence which introduces the paragraph’s theme. Linguistic investigation of this and related notions is in its early stages, but TEXT analysis of paragraphs indicates that the SEMANTIC and SYNTACTIC complexities of paragraph structure are much greater than this simple judgement suggests.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم التطوير يقيم دورة عن أخلاقيات المهنة للمنتسبين الجدد

تتضمن زيارة المراقد المقدسة في كربلاء.. معهد القرآن الكريم النسوي ينظم سفرة دينية لطالباته

المجمع العلمي يحتفي بذكرى ولادة الإمامين الباقر والهادي (عليهما السلام)

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق فعاليات الأسبوع الثالث من برنامج البذرة الصالحة

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

ثورة طبية.. الذكاء الاصطناعي يكشف سرطان الكلى في وقت قياسي

لتعزيز الطاقة والتغلب على التعب.. عليك بـ7 طرق بسيطة

لتحسين الهضم والتحكم في الشهية.. ما أفضل وقت لتناول التمر؟

خبراء يكشفون تأثير الاستحمام في الظلام على جودة النوم !

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

إزالة ثاني أكسيد الكربون من الغلاف الجوي.. ما دور المحيطات والبحار؟

نظائر الهيليوم مقياس لاكتشاف رواسب الذهب.. كيف ذلك؟

الصين تطلق أول ناقلة نفط خام ذكية في العالم تعمل بالميثانول

الزمن على المريخ أسرع من الأرض.. دراسة علمية تكشف الفوارق

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations Conclusion

Arguments and semantic roles

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations

Constituency

Identifying meaningful elements Summary

Identifying meaningful elements within words

Identifying meaningful elements Identifying word meanings

Consequences of modifying Gunlogsons 2001 model

A case study of the semantics of clear - Factivity revisited

A case study of the semantics of clear - The analysis

A case study of the semantics of clear - Vagueness

Adjective/adverb semantics and verb semantics