Topic-Comment Structures — Advanced Patterns

By the end of this lesson, you will identify and produce topic-comment sentences, including left-dislocation, double nominative, and verb-copying structures.

Chinese Is a Topic-Prominent Language

English is predominantly subject-prominent: sentences are organized around who does the action. Chinese is partly topic-prominent: sentences are often organized around what the sentence is about, which may or may not be the grammatical subject.

This means a Chinese speaker can place almost any noun phrase at the front of the sentence as the topic, then comment on it — even if that noun is not the agent of the verb.

The Basic Topic-Comment Pattern

Topic (什么话题) , Comment (说什么)

The topic is established first — often with a pause or comma — and the comment follows.

Chinese	Pinyin	English (literal)
这本书，我已经看了三遍了。	Zhè běn shū, wǒ yǐjīng kàn le sān biàn le.	This book — I've already read it three times.
中文，我学了两年了。	Zhōngwén, wǒ xué le liǎng nián le.	Chinese — I've been studying it for two years.
那家餐厅，菜很好吃。	Nà jiā cāntīng, cài hěn hǎo chī.	That restaurant — the food is delicious.
这件事，我不太清楚。	Zhè jiàn shì, wǒ bú tài qīngchǔ.	This matter — I'm not very clear about it.

In these sentences, the topic (underlined in thought) is what the speaker wants to talk about, and the comment is what they want to say about it.

Pattern 1: Left-Dislocation (把 object fronted as topic)

An object from inside the sentence is moved to the front to become the topic. This is especially common when discussing something that was just mentioned.

Standard SVO	Left-dislocated Topic-Comment
我已经看完那本小说了。 (I already finished that novel.)	那本小说，我已经看完了。(That novel — I've already finished it.)
我们讨论了这个问题很久。 (We discussed this issue for a long time.)	这个问题，我们讨论了很久。(This issue — we discussed it for a long time.)