Subject and Topic

The concept of subject and the related concept of topic each refers to a different aspect of what linguistic units (phrases, sentences, utterances) are primarily “about.” While these terms have proven fruitful over the years for understanding many linguistic phenomena, at the same time they have been found to be difficult to define in a robust cross-linguistic sense that fully reflects the diversity of the world's languages, and in some cases these concepts are simply not useful for analyzing certain constructions, or perhaps even for describing some linguistic systems entirely. Ultimately, like most linguistic terms, the concepts of subject and topic are useful tools that fit many descriptive purposes but that do not necessarily have theoretical status as cross-linguistic universals, and as such they cannot necessarily account for the full cultural diversity observed across linguistic systems.