ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive account of topic structure, both English style and Chinese style, within the dynamic syntax framework in which two strategies, linked structures and unfixed node, are available. In general, Chinese topic constructions of the sort bear a resemblance to their English counterparts in that they encode the topic-comment relation in a syntactic fashion. The presentation of topic constructions in Chinese so far is based on a fundamental assumption that the topic is in a predication relation with the comment in the sense of E. Williams. Topic constructions presented earlier, according to W. Chafe, can be classified as English-style topic constructions since the topic is subcategorized by the verb. The chapter examines the facts observed, discusses so far into the dynamic account of topic constructions and demonstrates that the variation in interpretation of left-peripheral expressions can be successfully characterized from a left-right dynamics of language processing.
