toPiC, FoCUS, aNd emPhaSiS
57.1谈(到)/談(到) tán (dào) ‘speaking about (topic)’谈到中英两国的历史，他比谁都有兴趣。
談到中英兩國的歷史，他比誰都有興趣。
Tán dào Zhōng Yīng liǎng guó de lìshǐ, tā bǐ shéi dōu yǒu xìngqu.
Speaking about the history of China and England, he is more interested than anyone.至于/至於 zhìyú, 对于/對於 duìyú, and 关于/關於 guānyú are interchangeable, as are
提到 tí dào and 谈到/談到 tán dào.57.1.2 Structures that identify the topic of a sentence
57.1.2.1 topicalization
In Mandarin, a noun phrase may be identified as the topic of a sentence when it occurs at the
beginning of the sentence. If another noun phrase in the sentence has the same reference as
the topic, it is typically omitted. In the following sentences, the first noun phrase is the topic.
The omitted phrase is indicated as ( ).
那个饭馆，服务不好。
那個飯館，服務不好。
Nàge fànguǎn, fúwù bù hǎo.
That restaurant, the service is not good.美国大学，学费很贵。
美國大學，學費很貴。
Měiguó dàxué, xuéfèi hěn guì.
(In) American universities, tuition is very expensive.中国长城，我听说( )冬天最美。
中國長城，我聽說( )冬天最美。
Zhōngguó Chángchéng, wǒ tīngshuō ( ) dōngtiān zuì měi.
The Great Wall of China, I hear (it) is prettiest in the winter.汉字，我怎么写( )也写不好。
漢字，我怎麼寫( )也寫不好。
Hàn zì, wǒ zěnme xiě ( ) yě xiě bù hǎo.
Chinese characters, no matter how I write them I don’t write (them) well.
English also topicalizes noun phrases in this way, but topicalization is much more common in
Mandarin than in English.57.1.2.2 Noun phrase omission
In English, when a series of noun phrases refer to the same entity, all instances after the first
reference typically occur as pronouns. In Mandarin, noun phrase omission is more common
than pronominalization as a way to mark identity of reference. Noun phrase omission is one
way that Mandarin identifies a noun phrase as a topic. As we saw in the previous section, noun
phrases are typically omitted if they refer to the topic of the discourse.
Noun phrases are omitted when they occur in the same grammatical role as the first noun
phrase.
In this example, the first reference and the omitted noun phrases are subjects of the verb:张美丽每天都很忙。(_)早上六点起床，(_)七点出门，(_)晚上九点才回家。
張美麗每天都很忙。(_)早上六點起牀，(_)七點出門，(_)晚上九點才回家。
Zhāng Měilì měitiān dōu hěn máng. (_) Zǎoshang liùdiǎn qǐ chuáng, (_) qǐdiǎn
chū mén, (_) wǎnshang jiǔdiǎn cái huí jiā.
Zhang Meili is very busy every day. (She) gets up at 6 o’clock, (she) leaves the house
by 7 o’clock, and (she) doesn’t get home at night until 9 o’clock.