topikaalinen

Topikaalinen is an adjective in Finnish used to describe linguistic or discourse phenomena related to the topic of a clause. The core idea is topicality: the property of a constituent to function as the topic, or teema, around which the rest of the sentence—the comment or rheme—is organized. In a sentence with topicalization, the topic is often placed in the initial position and may receive prosodic prominence; how topics are marked can vary by language, using word order, case marking, or particles.

In Finnish and in cross-linguistic discourse analysis, topikaalisuus is studied within information structure and the theme-rheme (topic-comment) framework. The topic sets the discourse context, while the comment provides new information about it. The marking or highlighting of a topic is commonly referred to as topikointi in Finnish, and it interacts with focus marking and sentence perspective in analysis.

Example in Finnish: “Tämän kirjan minä luin eilen.” Here, “Tämän kirjan” functions as the topic, preceding the verb and the subject pronoun for emphasis, with the rest of the clause providing the comment: “luin eilen” (read yesterday).

The concept is central to discussions of functional sentence perspective, theme-rheme division, and cross-linguistic information-structure studies. It is distinct from grammatical subjects or focus-marked elements, though topics may overlap with these categories in actual usage.

See also: tema (theme), topikointi, fokusoituminen, teema-rhema, functional sentence perspective.