La topicalisation en français et en norvégien

Abstract

In this paper, structural and syntactic properties of left dislocation as topics in French and Norwegian are examined in a systematic manner. We establish a standard division of Hanging Topics and Left Dislocated Topics and argue for the distinction in both languages. There are however fundamental structural differences between French and Norwegian related fundamentally to the V2 feature of Norwegian as a Germanic language. This means that we find language-specific characteristics. We propose a movement approach for Norwegian, whereas French has both base generated Hanging Topics and Left Dislocations. In this manner we can explain typical differences between the two languages and refine insights that have been established in the linguistic literature for French.