→ Main entry: Topic-Comment
Topic-comment structure is an alternative term for the topic-comment sentence organization pattern. In topic-comment (or topic-prominent) languages, sentences are organized around a topic (the entity or concept being discussed) followed by a comment (what is said about it), rather than around a grammatical subject and predicate as in English.
This structure is especially prominent in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, where topic markers explicitly signal the division:
- Japanese: 象は鼻が長い (Zō wa hana ga nagai — “As for elephants, the nose is long”)
- Korean: 나는 머리가 아파요 (Na-neun meori-ga apayo — “As for me, the head hurts”)
- Chinese: 这本书我看过了 (Zhè běn shū wǒ kàn guò le — “This book, I have read”)
See the full entry at Topic-Comment for a detailed treatment of topic-prominent vs. subject-prominent languages.