Topicalization

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myname - 26 Mar 2008 08:39 GMT

Hello,

two days ago, I showed a few people (including you) ten sentences
asking whether they were grammatically correct or not.

Everybody agreed this one was NOT correct:

1) Two first class honors Carl wants among his senior sophister students
this year

But then I heard of "Topicalization" (aka Topic fronting aka Left
dislocation) :
- Most rap, I enjoy
- That car, I would like to own
- That, I'm not sure about
- That kind, I kind of enjoy

Considering this (and adding a comma), wouldn't sentence 1 be "correct" ?
(again, it's all about grammar, not about style...)

Thanks !

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sprocket - 26 Mar 2008 09:03 GMT

> But then I heard of "Topicalization" (aka Topic fronting aka Left
> dislocation) :

Lithium controls the condition, but currently it's incurable.

> - Most rap, I enjoy
> - That car, I would like to own
> - That, I'm not sure about
> - That kind, I kind of enjoy

Most rap, you enjoy already? Mazel tov. It's also used in other
dialectical forms of English, but you won't hear such constructions
employed in standard English.

> Considering this (and adding a comma), wouldn't sentence 1 be "correct" ?
> (again, it's all about grammar, not about style...)

Try writing it out and see if you can get a sentence that's parsable by
a human. Alternatively you could stop treating English legalistically,
and throw up a style warning for formations that aren't clear and
straightforward. That would leave the onus on the writer to accept or
reject the advice.

JS

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Discussion Groups / British English / March 2008

Topicalization