Problems of Classification of Topic Constructions in Romance Languages: a literature review

This article is devoted to the discussion of the boundaries of applicability of the detailed classification of topic constructions developed in generative grammar to the linguistic facts of the Portuguese and French on various synchronous sections of their history. It is assumed that the results of the study will be relevant for most Romance languages. The article reviews both scientific research in which the principles of classification are directly explored, and works that are limited exclusively to the analysis of language material which use certain nomenclature. The purpose of the review is to identify the optimal approach to classifying Romance topic labeling strategies. The most common classification is based on the opposition of the topicalization and the left dislocation with further division into subtypes: hanging topic left dislocation, clitic left dislocation, English type topicalization, V2 topicalization, “wild” topicalization. Differentiation is carried out according to various criteria, including the presence of a resumptive element, the nature of the resumptive element, the preservation of the case, the position of the marked topic relative to the boundaries of the clause. The experience of researchers in Portuguese and French shows that factors such as the absence of grammatical case, the pro-drop, the free ellipsis of the object of transitive verbs in some cases and the dubious status of certain pronouns can make it difficult to distinguish between these subtypes. Generative criteria also turn out to be untenable, since outwardly similar constructions behave differently in different languages. Based on the facts presented, it is concluded that the detailed classification is untenable in relation to Romance languages, since the vast majority of language examples are technically impossible to classify as a specific subtype. However, the possibility of a basic division into the construction of the left dislocation (with resumption) and topicalization (without resumption) in French and Portuguese is invariably present. 

1. Anagnostopoulou E. Clitic Left Dislocation and Contrastive Left Dislocation // Materials on Left Dislocation / ed. by E. Anagnostopoulou, H.V. Riemsdijk, F. Zwarts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1997. P. 151–192.

2. Antonelli A.L. O sistema V2 parcial do Português Clássico // Fórum Linguístico, 2020, vol. 17, no. 4. P. 5398–5415.

3. Antonelli A.L. Sintaxe da Posição do Verbo e Mudança Gramatical na História do Português Europeu (Tese de doutorado) / A.L. Antonelli. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Linguagem, 2011. 230 p.

4. Arteaga D. On null objects in Old French // Romance linguistics: Theoretical perspectives: selected papers from the 27th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXVII). Irvine, 20-22 February, 1997 / ed. by A. Schwegler, B. Tranel, M. Uribe-Etxebarria. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998. P. 1–13.

5. Barnes B. The pragmatics of Left Detachment in spoken Standard French / B. Barnes. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1985. 123 p.

6. Benincà P. A detailed map of the left periphery of medieval Romance // Cross-linguistic research in syntax and semantics: Negation, tense and clausal architecture / ed. by R. Zanuttini et al. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006. P. 53–86.

7. Benincà P. Complement Clitics in Medieval Romance: The Tobler-Mussafia Law // Clause Structure and Language Change / ed.by A. Battye, I. Roberts. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. P. 325–344.

8. Bortolussi B. Topicalization versus left-dislocation in Biblical Latin / B. Bortolussi, L. Sznajder // Journal of Latin Linguistics, 2014, 13. P. 163–195.

9. Bortolussi B. Topicalizations, left dislocations and the left-periphery // Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 2017, 16. P. 101–123.

10. Cinque G. ‘Topic’ Constructions in some European languages and ‘connectedness’ // Materials on Left Dislocation / ed. by E. Anagnostopoulou, H.V. Riemsdijk, F. Zwarts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1997 (1983). P. 93–118.

11. Combettes B. Thématisation et topicalisation : leur rôle respectif dans l’évolution du français // La thématisation dans les langues : actes du colloque de Caen, 9-11 octobre 1997 / textes réunis par Claude Guimier. 2. éd. Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2000. P. 231–246.

12. Cruschina S. Topicalization in the Romance Languages // Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics / ed. by M. Aronoff. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 23 p.

13. de Andrade A. Aboutness Topics in Old and Middle French: A corpus-based study on the fate of V2 // Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2018, 63(2). P. 194–220.

14. de Andrade A. On the Emergence of Topicalization in Modern European Portuguese: A Study at the Syntax-Information Structure Interface [Preprint]. 2015. 13 p.

15. De Cat C. French dislocation: Interpretation, syntax, acquisition / C. De Cat. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 295 p.

16. Delais-Roussarie E. Dislocation / E. Delais-Roussarie, J. Doetjes, P. Sleeman // Handbook of French Semantics / ed. by F. Corblin, H. de Swart. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 2004. P. 501–528.

17. Dik S.C. The Theory of Functional Grammar. 2nd revised ed. by Kees Hengeveld / S.C. Dik, K. Hengeveld. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Part I. 510 p.

18. Donaldson B. Null objects in Old French // Research in Old French: The State of the Art / ed. by D. Arteaga. Dordrecht: Springer, 2013. Р. 61–86.

19. Galves C. Do Português Clássico ao Português Europeu Moderno: uma Análise Minimalista // Estudos Linguísticos e Literários, 1997, 19. P. 105–128.

20. Galves C. Subject inversion in transitive sentences from Classical to Modern European Portuguese: A corpus-based study / C. Galves, A. Gibrail // Word Order Change / ed by A.M. Martins, A. Cardoso. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Р. 163– 178.

21. Galves C., Paixão de Souza M. C. The change in the position of the verb in the history of Portuguese: subject realization, clitic placement, and prosody / C. Galves, M.C. Paixão de Souza // Language, 2017, 93 (3). P. e152–e180.

22. Galves C. The loss of verb-second in the history of Portuguese: Subject position, Clitic placement and Prosody /C. Galves, M.C. Paixão de Souza. 2010. 31 p.

23. Gibrail A.V.B. Formas de manifestação de objetos diretos topicalizados no português clássico: mudança na diacronia // Revista da ABRALIN, 2015, vol.14, no. 3. P. 207–236.

24. Gibrail A.V.B. Topicalização V2 na gramática do português clássico: mudanças na diacronia // Anais do SETA, 2007, 1. P. 45– 50.

25. Halla-aho H. Left-Dislocation in Latin: Topics and Syntax in Republican Texts / H. Halla-aho. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 253 p.

26. Hänsch A.Y. Germanic Properties in the Left Periphery of Old French: V-to-C-Movement, XP-Fronting, Stylistic Fronting and Verb-Initial Clauses. PhD Dissertation / A. Y. Hänsch. University of Ottawa, 2014. 269 p.

27. Lambrecht K. Dislocation // Language Typology and Language Universals / ed. by Haspelmath M. et al. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001. P. 1050–1078.

28. Lambrecht K. Information structure and sentence form: topic focus and the mental representation of discourse referents / K. Lambrecht. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 388 p.

29. LaPolla R.J. Arguments for seeing Theme-Rheme and Topic-Comment as separate functional structures // Systemic Functional Language Description: Making Meaning Matter / ed. J.R. Martin, Y.J. Doran, G. Figueredo. New York: Routledge, 2020. P. 162–186.

30. Le Coultre J. De L’ordre des mots dans Crestien de Troyes / J.Le Coultre. Dresde: Teubner, 1875. 89 р.

31. López L. Dislocations // The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure / ed. by C. Féry, Sh. Ishihara. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. P. 402–421.

32. Marchello-Nizia C. Dislocations en ancien français: thématisation ou rhématisation ? // Cahiers de Praxématique, 1998, 30. P. 162–178.

33. Marchello-Nizia C. Les pronoms personnels, et EN, Y et ON (§30.3) // Grande Grammaire Historique du Français Vol. I / éd. par Ch. Marchello-Nizia et al. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2020. P. 674–692.

34. Marchello-Nizia С. Le sujet (§34.1); L’objet (§34.2) // Grande Grammaire Historique du Français Vol. II / éd. par Ch. Marchello-Nizia et al. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2020. P. 1055–1155.

35. Marchello-Nizia C. L’évolution du français. Ordre des mots, démonstratifs, accent Tonique / C. Marchello-Nizia. Paris: Armand Colin, 1995. 213 p.

36. Martins A.M. A colocação dos pronomes clíticos em sincronia e diacronia // Manual de Linguística Portuguesa / ed. por A. M. Martins, E. Carrilho. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. P. 401–430.

37. Martins A.M. Clíticos na História do Português (Tese de Doutoramento) / A.M. Martins. Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 1994. 628 p.

38. Mateus M.H.M. et al. Gramática da língua portuguesa / M.H.M. Mateus et al. 5. ed., rev. e aumentada. Lisboa: Caminho, 2003. 1127 p.

39. Mathieu É. The left periphery in Old French // Research in Old French: The State of the Art / ed. by D. Arteaga. Dordrecht: Springer, 2013. P. 327–350.

40. Morais M.A.T. Aspectos diacrônicos do movimento do verbo, estrutura da frase e Caso nominativo no português do Brasil // Português brasileiro: uma viagem diacrónica / ed. by I. Roberts, M. A. Kato. Campinas: UNICAMP, 1993. P. 263–306.

41. Pontes E.S.L. Topicalização e deslocamento para a esquerda // Ensaios de Linguística, 1983, no. 9. P. 121–151.

42. Prevost S. Détachement et topicalisation: des niveaux d’analyse différents // Cahiers de praxématique, 2003, 40. P. 97–126.

43. Reinhart T. Pragmatics and Linguistics: an analysis of Sentence Topics // Philosophica, 1981, vol. 27, no.1. P. 53–94.

44. Ribeiro I. A sintaxe da ordem no português arcaico: o efeito V2 (Tese de doutorado em Lingüística) / I. Ribeiro. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 1995. 286 p.

45. Roberts I.G. Verbs and diachronic syntax: A comparative history of English and French / I. G. Roberts. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993. 373 p.

46. Ross J. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. PhD dissertation / J. Ross. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967. 501 p.

47. Troberg M. Topic-comment resumptive pronouns in Modern French and Old and Middle French // Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 2004, 23(1). P. 133–156.

48. Vance B.S. Syntactic Change in Medieval French: Verb-Second and Null Subjects (2nd ed.) / B. S. Vance. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media, 1997. 399 p.

49. Westbury J. Left Dislocation: a typological overview // Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 2016, vol. 50. P. 21–45.

50. Zaring L. The nature of V2 in Old French: Evidence from subject inversion in embedded clause // Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2018, 63(2). P. 288–308.

51. Zribi-Hertz A. Relations anaphoriques en français : Esquisse d’une grammaire générative raisonnée de la réflexivité et de l’ellipse structurale (tome 2). Thèse de doctorat en Linguistique / A. Zribi-Hertz. Université Paris 8, 1986. 664 p.