Topicalized versus canonical word order in
       Cantonese: a production study

Abstract of B.CogSci Thesis

Wong Kwok Leung Alfred

It has been found that in Cantonese topicalized sentences, which are in Object-Subject-Verb structure, are processed faster than their canonical counterparts, which are in  Subject-Verb-Object structure. It was also proposed that the length of the relative clause modifying the object noun-phrase is related to the reconstruction of the canonical sentences.

A study was conducted to see if the advantage in processing topicalized sentence also extends to production. A simple read-aloud paradigm was introduced. The subjects' responses were recorded and analyzed. The main focus of this experiment is on the time intervals of the production of a whole sentence and its object NP, as well as their ratio in the two versions (SVO vs. OSV) of the same sentence. Another point of interest is the pausing after the topic in production of topicalized sentences and its effect on efficiency of production. The results showed that the ratio of the time intervals of NP to the whole sentence is lower in topicalized sentence than in the canonical counterparts. Nevertheless, no significant overall advantage is observed in production of topicalized sentences.