Jie Xu   Jie Cheng

Abstract

Researchers have long reached the consensus that in a Chinese-style topic construction the comment says something about the topic, but they are still divided as to how the semantic function of aboutness should be represented in syntax. The most up-to-date analyses of the construction, postulating a topic projection within the CP layer, does not supply a syntactic structure that can underpin the aboutness meaning or provide an adequate account of the essential semantic and syntactic properties of the construction. This study proposes a double-Infl configuration for Chinese-style topic constructions, i.e., an Infl projects an InlfP, selecting a light verb phrase VABOUTP as its complement and a TopicP as its specifier; VABOUT connects the comment ForceP to the TopicP, thus underpinning the aboutness meaning. This proposal can account for both the essential semantic and syntactic properties of Chinese-style topic constructions and the variation between topic-prominent and subject-prominent languages. The grammatical component of subject-prominent languages has a strong Infl, which has an u[AGREE] feature and hence requires the obligatory presence of a DP in the specifier position of its projection; in contrast, that of topic-prominent languages has a weak Infl, which lacks the feature and hence allows an optional DP or TopicP in the position.