Topicalization

14.1 Topics

The topic of a sentence refers to what the sentence is about, which is not always necessarily the subject. In conversation, one topic may be used over many sentences, or just one. All languages have some way of marking the topic, often by fronting it to the beginning of the clause. Novegradian, on the other hand, has developed a distinct topic marker, то to, which was originally a demonstrative. This older usage can be seen reflected in the formation of the subordinating conjunction то-це tó-ce. As a clitic, it may attach itself to any noun or pronoun, although never to any other parts of speech ¹ . A topicalized noun will generally (although not necessarily) move toward the front of the clause as well, dragging prepositions and some adverbs along with it. The definite form of adjectives used with topicalized nouns derives from the Proto-Slavic anaphoric pronoun *-j-, which was also the source of the oblique forms of the third-person pronouns.

Topic marking is used frequently in Novegradian writing and discourse, but has been largely ignored in examples thus far because it means very little without context. Longer texts or transcripts of conversations are necessary to adequately demonstrate its usage. For this reason, in Section 14.5 at the end of this chapter there is a transcript of a brief conversation as well as an example of topicalization in formal writing.

14.2 Marking the Topic

The topic marker is attached to the end of the fully-declined noun, separated in writing with a hyphen. It undergoes a sort of vowel harmony where the vowel of the marker changes according to the last vowel of the word it was attached to.

In the nominative and inanimate accusative cases, there are six such forms. -от, with a metathesized vowel, is used after nouns ending in a consonant. -та is used after any singular noun ending in /a/, regardless of gender. -те is used after a noun ending in /e/. The plain -то is used in all other singular situations (neuter nouns in /o/, nouns in /i/, etc). -ти is used after all nominative/accusative plural nouns ending in either /i/ or /e/ and -та after all plural nouns ending in /a/.

In the oblique cases as well as the animate accusative, all of these forms collapse into just two. -те is used whenever the previous word ends in a front vowel /æ e i/ and -то when it ends in a back vowel /a o u ɨ/ or consonant.

For pronouns, the rules are slightly different. A combination of phonological rules (first and second persons) and natural gender (third person) comes in play. First and second person pronouns in any case have only two forms, -то after forms ending a vowel and -от after forms ending in a consonant: яс-от ias-ót “I.nom”, мене-то mené-to “I.acc”. In the third person, -то is used for all masculine, neuter, dual, and plural pronouns regardless of case, and -та is used for all feminine pronouns: она-та oná-ta “she.nom”, ѣ-та iě́-ta “she.acc”.

The same set of rules used with the third person (-та for feminine, -то for all others) apply to other pronouns such as ше, вехе, едене, and others that display gender. Interrogative pronouns all take -от, and almost always appear in their ‘emphatic’ forms with the suffix -ж: цоиж-от cojiź-ót “what...?”

Adjectives modifying a topicalized noun directly must appear in their definite forms. Across a copula this is optional, although increasingly uncommon.

If a compound nominal phrase is meant to be topicalized, the topical marker only attaches to the first word, though nevertheless applies to the whole phrase.

14.3 Referencing the Topic

Generally once a topic has been introduced and no new topic has yet taken its place, it does not need to be mentioned and can simply be dropped, whether it be the subject, object, or an oblique case, although the latter two are much less frequent than the first. The sole required exception is when the topic is supposed to be the object of a preposition, in which case the preposition cannot be left stranded. In such cases, some pronoun must be left behind in place of the dropped object. If third person, a declined form of то is often used.

If a noun is repeated in full for emphasis after it has been introduced, the topic marker often remains attached in these subsequent occurances. However, if a pronoun representing the topic is repeated, the marker is rarely seen again.

14.4 Changing the Topic

The introduction of a new noun with the topic marker serves to replace the previous one with the new one from that point onward. A new noun bearing the topic marker appearing in a sentence also using the previous topic will appear toward the end of the clause, rather than the beginning, to avoid confusion. For example, in a discussion about Еване, a transition sentence may appear as И задѣм покренале новий воз-от “And then he bought that new car”), where the topic remains unchanged until the end of the sentence. Alternatively, the noun “car” could remain unmarked until the following sentence.

14.5 Examples

The following two examples consist of longer texts that allow topics to appear, be referenced, and be changed over the course of the prose. Due to the length of these samples, the glossing will be displayed in an interlinear format. The first line is the original Cyrillic, the second a transliteration, and the third an abbreviated gloss which shows far less information than the glosses used so far. Afterwards is a prose English translation.

14.5.1 A Conversation

A) Táśa! Hello! I haven’t seen you in two weeks! How have you been?
B) Well, Márke. I just returned from Italy.
A) Ah, yes, of course. How was the trip?
B) Oh, Italy is a beautiful country. There’s so much history there! Ancient cities, beautiful culture, and amazing food. I’ll tell you more later. And you, what have you been doing?
A) Not much. I haven’t had much interesting happen. I hope that soon I’ll be able to go on vacation somewhere, maybe to China or Japan.

14.5.2 A Newspaper Article

Following is a summarized version of an article from the Novegradian newspaper Совѣшкьи Sově́śkji.

“Yesterday, September 24th, a small group consisting of five United Nations diplomats was dispatched to Cairo for a week-long stay in the war-torn city. Including highly-trained specialists from the Republic of Novegrad, England, the United States, Germany, and the League of Arab Nations, the diplomatic dispatch will meet with rebel leaders in southern Cairo to try to organize a cease fire. Cairo, as well as a significant portion of western Egypt, has been in rebel control for the last three months since the civil war started. The city has been the scene of intense fighting as Republican strongholds scattered throughout the city have launched sporadic raids on occupied compounds. In the meantime, the acting Republican government has been relocated to the port of Al-Iskindireya (Alexandria). While many are not optimistic about the success of this mission, English diplomat and mission leader Richard Allen has stated that ‘we are hopeful that this is a step in the positive direction toward finally bringing about a truce.’”