Talk:Topic-prominent language

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How does it differ from analytic language? --Puzzlet Chung 17:24, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That belongs on a different classification. "Topic-prominent" implies a certain organization of propositions and sentences (pragmatics). "Analytic" is a matter of morphemes being more or less isolated (morphology). Chinese is analytic and topic-prominent. Japanese is quite synthetic and also topic-prominent. --Pablo D. Flores 21:00, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Common features ...

"They do not have articles, which are another way of indicating old vs. new information."

This statement of course is true with regard to e.g. Chinese and Japanese, yet is not regarding other languages listed here, like - not to speak of French! - Hungarian and maybe Laḱota (this having various kinds of so-called topic markers as kiŋ, k'uŋ, waŋ, eya, etaŋ, ċa etc. that in many cases can be translated as articles). Yet, still making my confusion complete was a statement I encountered recently when reading Steven Pinker's Language Instinct: there, even good old German is listed among the topic-prominent languages :Q Now, as it seems, almost all languages except for English (with its pretty strict word order) may join this club here hmm? Wayasu (talk) 18:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ASL example

Why is the third ASL example marked with "*"? Does it mean it's ungrammatical? --89.1.71.7 10:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the ASL rather an example of the "various idiosyncratic means for topicalization" used by non-topic-prominent languages? --Ippei 12:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French?

French loves to use disjunctive pronouns, e.g. "on va le tuer, le docteur!" - is this topic-prominency? It's an IE language, however. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 02:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

In away it is, but as to its syntax, I think it is clearly of non-topic-prominent language's that has much less systematic means of marking topic. --Ippei 12:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarian?

Being pretty familiar with Hungarian, I'd like to learn as in what way (if at all, to what extent?) it can be classified as a topic-prominent language. If this actually holds true, I'm afraid of having been unaware of this feature for about four decades :( Wayasu (talk) 17:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It has been the predominant view for quite some time now that Hungarian is a topic-prominent language. Try anything by Katalin É. Kiss (list of publications). prezzey (talk) 10:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'd be most grateful if you could give an example on the site respective, will you? Seeing that you're also familiar with Hebrew, what's your opinion on this one? (BTW, I've been struggling with designing kind of a Chomskyan description of Lakota syntax for quite some time now...). Wayasu (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic?

I'd have expected Arabic being listed: Allah hu akbar: as-for-G-d: he-is great Any comments? Wayasu (talk) 17:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It is Allahu akbar, where -u is a case suffix (i'rab) indicating nominative case, similar to -us in Latin, and the phrase is simply a noun modified by an adjective, not a topic-comment construction. --JWB (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Wayasu (talk) 19:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Significance?

Any information on cultural consequences of topic-prominent language versus non-topic-prominent language?

That wouldn't be hard science IMHO. --Kjoonlee 21:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slavic languages

So Slavic languages are also topic-prominent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 (talk) 19:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English?

Um ... I understand the English clause to place great emphasis on theme and rheme in its informational structure. No mention in the article. Very bizarre. Tony (talk) 14:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)