ABSTRACT
The most common and straightforward form of topicalization is that in which the object of the verb is displaced at the beginning of the sentence. One of the main communicative functions of topicalization, in Cantonese as in English, is to contrast the topicalized word or phrase with another which is mentioned or implied in the context. As a language with little grammatical morphology, Cantonese relies heavily on word order to express grammatical relations such as subject and object. The role of sentence topic, however, is central to Chinese grammar. The notion of sentence topic with reference to Chinese is a grammatical notion, referring to a position in the sentence with particular properties normally the initial position; an exception is secondary topicalization. In English, it is a grammatical requirement that every sentence must have a subject.
