II. Some distinctive features of Chinese

Chinese is a Topic-Prominent language. In addition to the grammatical relations of "Subject" and

"Verb" found in most languages, the description of Chinese will also include the elements of "Topic" and "Comment".

The topic of a sentence is basically what the sentence is about. It always appears at the very beginning of a sentence, referring to something that the speaker assumes the listener would have some knowledge. A topic does not equal to a subject of a sentence in that a subject must always have a direct semantic relationship with the Verb as the one that performs the action or exists in the state indicated by the Verb, yet a topic need not. It can be followed optionally by a pause in speech or a comma in writing, showing what is being talked about, apart from the rest of the sentence. For example,

Topic Comment

1) zh7 k7, sh4ngc^ b] du8

this lesson, new words (are) not much

[topic] [subject] [predicate]

2)N3 b6n sh[, w0 y&j%n k3n w1n le.

that MW book, I already read finish PFV

[topic] [subject] [predicate]/p>

Because of these special features, and because of the importance of the notion of "topic" in the explanation and understanding of its grammar, Chinese is termed a topic-prominent language.

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