Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Word order 347
23.3.3 THE TOPIC POSITION
The initial position in a sentence is often used to indicate what the sentence is ‘about’, in
other words its topic. As explained in 23.1, in unmarked sentences it is usually the subject
(if overtly expressed) that occupies the topic position. However, through scrambling it is
possible to topicalize any constituent except those that obligatorily occur in the
immediately preverbal position (see 23.2.1). In some of the translations in this section
passivization has been used in order to reflect the informational effect of topicalizing a
non-subject constituent.
(63) Erol-a sonunda Spor Birliği bir maDALya ver-di.
Erol-DAT finally sports association a medal give-PF
‘Erol was finally awarded a medal by the Sports Association.’
Where a non-definite direct object is topicalized, it has to be given accusative marking if
it is no longer in the immediately preverbal position (see 14.3.3.2 (ii)).
(64) Suluboya-yı ancak usTA bir ressam böyle kullan-abil-ir.
watercolour-ACC only highly.skilled a painter like.this use-PSB-AOR
‘Watercolours can only be used like this by a highly skilled painter.’
An indefinite noun phrase can be topicalized only if it refers to a member or members of
a group or category that has been mentioned or implied in the preceding discourse:
(65) Misafirlerin çoğu bahçeye çıkmıştı. Birkaç çocuk orada babamla
konuşuyordu.
‘Most of the guests had gone out into the garden. Several children were talking to
my father out there.’
(66) Bir tane de bana ver.
‘Give me one, too.’
Noun phrases with categorial status (22.3) cannot be topicalized as subjects. This means
that subject noun phrases that occur in the topic position without plural marking and
without a determiner are always interpreted as definite (see 22.5) or generic (see 22.7).
It should be noted that not all sentences in Turkish have overtly expressed topics. The
continuation of a subject-topic from one sentence to another is signalled by the absence
of a noun phrase referring to the subject in the second and subsequent sentences in the
sequence (see 18.1.5).
Topicalization can also take place within a noun clause:
(67) Ayşe [yaprağ-ı annesi (…) sar-ıyor] san-dı.
Ayşe vine.leaf-ACC mother-3SG.POSS stuff-IMPF think-PF
‘Ayşe thought the vine leaves were being stuffed by her mother.’