Some Considerations for the Process of Topicalization

Abstract

The present paper has grown out of ideas conceived before, during, and after the Workshop on Syntax and Semantics. In this paper I have incorporated the original workshop paper in my preliminary discussions which lead up to my proposal concerning question words. The major points in the proposal are:

• (1) While questions are known to be related to their corresponding affirmative and negative counterparts, question words are also used in nonquestion constructions in a related manner.

• (2) Relatcdness mentioned in (1) can be accounted for by the similarity in underlying structure while differences in meaning, use, and surface forms can be attributed to differences in feature specification.

• (3) The range of ‘questioned’ constituent corresponds to the range of focus in a declarative statement.

• (4) Closed-class morphemes like prepositions and question words are selected in the base component and not introduced by transformations.