topicmarking
Topic marking is a grammatical feature in which the element of a sentence that serves as the main point of discourse—the topic—is marked within the clause. This topic is not necessarily the same as the grammatical subject; it is the entity the statement is about, and it often cues the information structure, such as givenness, focus, or contrast.
In languages with explicit topic marking, a particle or clitic attaches to the topic word. Japanese is
Topic marking often serves functions in information structure such as signaling known versus new information, placing
Cross-linguistically, topic marking shows substantial variation. Some languages rely heavily on explicit particles, while others primarily