英文摘要 |
This paper provides substantial evidence for analysing the preposed object as an internal topic. The dominant misconception of the preposed object as an instance of focalization, mainly due to a false parallel with the lian…ye/dou ‘even’ construction, is invalidated, both on syntactic and semantic grounds. The preposed object is shown not to be adjoined to vP, but to occupy the specifier position of a functional projection FP below the subject and above vP. Like the external topic in the sentence-initial position, the internal topic can be derived in either of two ways, by movement or by base-generation. In contrast to the external topic position (where, e.g., conditional and causal clauses are base-generated), no clauses are admitted in the internal topic position. Likewise, multiple topics are only possible in the external topic position and excluded from the internal topic position. |