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Keywords:: Topic-comment Structure; academic evolution; Gabelentz; Hockett; matching relationship

Abstract:: The investigation of topic-comment structure can be traced back to the theory of “initiation-purpose” proposed by Weil. Gabelentz is the first scholar introducing the structure of “psychological subject-psychological predicate” in terms of Chinese language, and the pioneering innovator suggesting the three-plane theory. In order to oppose the imitation of “subject-predicate” framework, Chen Chengze put forward a “target-comment” framework. Inspired by Hockett’s discussion of the topic in English and Chinese, Chao Yen-Ren claimed that the grammatical sense of subject-predicate is a “topic-comment”. Charles N. Li proposed that Chinese is a topic-prominent language based on language typology. According to the Chinese teaching practice outside China, Liu Hongmo put forward the analysis of “topic-state”. This paper disagrees with Xu and Liu’s position that Chinese has four basic syntactic elements of S, T, V, O. In addition, owing to the “Initial-NP Determinism” and the matching relationship of the topic-comment, this paper proposes a new perspective in topic-comment research with a combination of categorization systems and matching frames.