Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-language Study

499 Pages·1983·28.02 MB·English

by  Talmy Givón (Ed.)

TOPIC CONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE
TYPOLOGICAL STUDIES IN LANGUAGE (TSL)
A companion series to the journal "STUDIES IN LANGUAGE"
Honorary Editor: Joseph H. Greenberg
General Editor: T. Givón
Editorial Board:
Alton Becker (Michigan) Margaret Langdon (San Diego)
Wallace Chafe (Berkeley) Charles Li (Santa Barbara)
Bernard Comrie (Los Angeles) Johanna Nichols (Berkeley)
Gerard Diffloth (Chicago) Andrew Pawley (Auckland)
R.M, W.Dixon (Canberra) Frans Plank (Hanover)
John Haiman (Winnipeg) Dan Slobin (Berkeley)
Paul Hopper (Binghamton) Sandra Thompson (Los Angeles)
Volumes in this series will be functionally and typologically oriented, cover­
ing specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide variety
of languages and language typologies. The orientation of the volumes will be
substantive rather than formal, with the aim of investigating universals of
human language via as broadly defined a data base as possible, leaning toward
cross-linguistic, diachronic, developmental and live-discourse data. The
series is, in spirit as well as in fact, a continuation of the tradition initiated by
C. Li (Word Order and Word Order Change, Subject and Topic, Mechanisms
for Syntactic Change) and continued by T. Givón (Discourse and Syntax) and
P. Hopper (Tense and Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics).
Volume 3
T. Givón (ed.)
TOPIC CONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE:
A QUANTITATIVE CROSS-LANGUAGE STUDY
TOPIC CONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE:
A QUANTITATIVE CROSS-LANGUAGE STUDY
edited by
T. GIVÓN
Linguistics Department
University of Oregon, Eugene
and
Ute Language Program
Southern Ute Tribe
Ignacio, Colorado
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
1983
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Topic Continuity in Discourse : A quantitative cross-language study / T. Givón.
p. cm. (Typological Studies in Language, issn 0167-7373 ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Discourse analysis. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general --Topic and comment.
I. Givón, Talmy, 1936-.
P302 .T66x 1983
85673162
isbn 978 90 272 2867 3 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 2863 5 (Pb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 8025 1 (Eb)
© 1983 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
TOPIC CONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE: AN INTRODUCTION
T. GIVÓN
Linguistic Department
University of Oregon, Eugene
and
Ute Language Program
Southern Ute Tribe
Ignacio, Colorado

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE: AN INTRODUCTION 1
T. Givón
2. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN JAPANESE 43
J. Hinds
3. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN WRITTEN AMHARIC NARRATIVE 95
M. Gasser
4. TOPIC CONTINUITY AND WORD-ORDER PRAGMATICS IN UTE . . 141
T. Givón
5. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW NARRATIVE 215
A. Fox
6. TOPIC CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY IN DISCOURSE: A STUDY
OF SPOKEN LATIN-AMERICAN SPANISH 255
P. Bentivoglio
7. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN WRITTEN ENGLISH NARRATIVE 313
C. Brown
8. TOPIC CONTINUITY IN SPOKEN ENGLISH 343
T. Givón
9. SOME DIMENSIONS OF TOPIC-NP CONTINUITY IN HAUSA NAR­
RATIVE 365
P. Jaggar
10. TOPIC CONTINUITY AND THE VOICING SYSTEM OF AN ERGATIVE
LANGUAGE: CHAMORRO 425
A. Cooreman
Index of Names 491

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. The 'topic' strand. Micro traditions 5
2. The 'paragraph' strand: Macro traditions 7
3. Major topic functions within the thematic paragraph 9
4. The discourse file: Topic availability to the hearer 9
5. Factors affecting topic availability 10
6. Discourse measurements of topic continuity 12
6.1. Referential distance ('look-back') 13
6.2. Potential interference ('ambiguity') 14
6.3. Persistence ('decay') 14
7. The grammatical coding of topic continuity 15
7.1. Preliminaries: Functional domains and syntactic coding 15
7.2. Scales in the coding of topic accessibility 17
7.2.1. The scale of phonological size 18
7.2.2. The word-order scale 19
7.2.3. The scale of roles and animacy . . 20
7.3. Topicality and passive vs. active 23
7.4. Topic continuity and main vs. subordinate clauses 23
7.5. Referential-indefinite NP's and existential-presentative devices .... 25
7.6. Topic continuity and definite-marking morphology 27
7.7. The use of restrictive modifiers 27
8. The studies in this volume 27
9. Typological predictions in the grammar of topic continuity 30
9.1. Zero anaphora, pronouns and agreement 30
9.2. Word-order variation and dislocations 31
9.2.1. Languages with rigid word-order 32
9.2.2. Languages with pragmatically-flexible word-order 33
9.3. Indefinites and existential-presentative constructions 34
9.4. Topic continuity and morphology 35
Notes 35
References 38