DETACHED THEMES: ABSOLUTE THEME, DISLOCATIONS AND DOUBLE THEMES
Absolute Theme
The Themes analyzed so far all have a place within the syntax and semantics of the clause. This is not the only type, however. Across the world’s languages, a very basic way of presenting a ‘newsworthy’ piece of information is by means of a detached lexical NG standing outside the clause. This ‘Chinese-style topic’ is always a definite NG or proper name which does not function as a constituent of the clause which follows it. The construction, here called Absolute Theme, is common in the spoken registers of many European languages, as illustrated by the following sentence, from Spanish (Jiménez Juliá,T ):
Los Beatles, sin Sgt. Pepper no tendríamos ni la mitad de la música pop de ahora. (The Beatles) (without Sgt. Pepper) (we wouldn’t have) (even half the pop music [we have] now)
The Theme The Beatles is completely detached, with no grammatical relations connecting it to the second part of the message. Nevertheless, it provides a pragmatic frame by which the connection is made inferentially, based on contextual knowledge.
Absolute Themes in English occur sometimes in spontaneous talk; they do not occur normally in written text. Here are two instances, both from news interviews on television. The first is in the context of a public appeal in a police inquiry, the second during the anthrax alarm in the aftermath of 11 September 2001. In both, the Absolute Theme provides a personal frame to the utterance.
Now Manchester United, their players have been holding up a banner.
The woman who died in New York, that’s obviously affecting her colleagues who work in the hospital.
