Is Hong Kong Sign Language a topic-prominent language?
Publication in refereed journal


香港中文大学研究人员 ( 现职)

施婉萍教授 (语言学及现代语言系)

全文

数位物件识别号 (DOI) http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ling-2015-0021

引用次数
Web of Sciencehttp://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/0WOS source URL
Scopushttp://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/0Scopus source URL

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摘要This paper addresses two questions. First, how can we know if a language is topic-prominent (Tp) in the spirit of Li and Thompson (1976, 1981)? Second, is Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) topic-prominent? This paper argues that some of the subsequent studies that adopt Li and Thompson's proposal may have over-interpreted the latter's initial claims by turning their observed characteristics of topic-prominent languages into "defining criteria" for topic-prominence. With linguistic evidence from Chinese, Lahu, and Lisu, this paper argues that topic-prominence first conceptualized by Li and Thompson is a broad notion that covers different linguistic phenomena that make topics prominent in Tp languages. Suggestions on how to interpret Li and Thompson's list of topic-prominence characteristics are given. é. Kiss's theory of discourse configurationality (1995, 1997, 2http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/0http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/01) is also used to investigate if HKSL is topic-prominent. It is argued that only "scene-setting" topics, but not "aboutness" topics, are marked non-manually in HKSL. HKSL cannot be considered topic-prominent on a par with Chinese and Lisu, because topicalization in HKSL is infrequent and the non-manual topic markers are not widespread. HKSL is not topic-prominent according to é. Kiss's theory either because thetic and categorical judgments are not realized in different syntactic structures.

着者Sze F.
期刊名称Linguistics
出版年份2http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/015
月份1
日期1
卷号53
期次4
出版社De Gruyter Mouton
出版地Germany
页次8http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/09 - 876
国际标準期刊号http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/0http://aims.cuhk.edu.hk/converis/portal/Publication/024-3949
语言英式英语

关键词aboutness topics, Hong Kong Sign Language, scene-setting topics, topic-prominence, topicalization