Topicalization and Left-Dislocation: A Functional Opposition Revisited

In this case study, we use conversational data from the Switchboard corpus to investigate the functional opposition between two pragmatically specialized constructions of English: Topicalization and Left Dislocation. Specifically, we use distributional trends in the Switchboard corpus to revise several conclusions reached by Prince (1981a, 1981b, 1997) concerning the function of Left Dislocation. While Prince maintains that Left Dislocation has no unitary function, we argue that the distinct uses of the construction identified by Prince can be subsumed under the general function of topic promotion. While Prince claims that Topicalization is a more pragmatically specialized construction than Left Dislocation, we argue that Left Dislocation has equally restrictive and distinct use conditions, which reflect its status as a topicpromoting device. We conclude that computational corpus methods provide an important check on the validity of claims concerning pragmatic markedness.