ABSTRACT
The most important semantic property of the topic is its referential (specific) interpretation. In this regard, the topic and comment correspond to the basic semantic functions of reference and predication. In the expression There’s a fly in my soup, there is no specific referential constituent which can function as the topic; such sentences are termed ‘thetic’ or ‘presentational.’ Expressions which have a topic-comment structure are termed ‘categorial’ (see Kuroda 1972; Sasse 1987). The topic relation is relevant for the description of many linguistic phenomena, not only in topicprominent languages, but also in subjectprominent languages; see Givón (1983) on verb agreement and Kuno (1987) on pronouns.
