topicalization
- noun
- /ˌtɑːpɪkəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/
- Specialized
- In English, topicalization often places the subject at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis, as in 'The book, I love.'
Examples
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The constructions in English capable of extracting a reflexive appear to be topicalization, clefting, pseudoclefting, and right node raising.
Academic text (2006) -
Notably, just as topicalization fails to rescue the inanimate reflexive case 4b, so do the other constructions capable of extracting reflexives:
Academic text (2006) -
So these constituency tests, topicalization, forces us to one or the other of those two trees.
-
As suggested by 7, then, the images of cases like 4a are good under all of these, not only under topicalization, as previously illustrated in 5:
Academic text (2006) -
Topicalization
Academic text (2004) -
She used topicalization to highlight the important details of her argument by starting her sentences with the main topic.
-
To clarify her point, she employed topicalization, starting with the main idea before providing supporting evidence.
Surface Forms
Morphology
topicalization = topicalize (transparent) = topic + al + ize + ation
Formed by regular derivation: topic -> topical -> topicalize -> topicalization, a standard verb-to-noun nominalization.
Etymology
Topicalization comes from topic ('subject' or 'theme') and the ending -ization which means 'making' or 'turning into'. So topicalization literally means 'making something the topic', often by moving it to the start of a sentence to give it extra attention.
