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In the process of learning Japanese, I've been doing some grammar analysis on sentence structure (across languages), Eg. subject, object, etc. I've come across something I haven't heard of before: the "topic" of the sentence.

Take this sentence: "Regarding coffee, arabica is smooth." "Arabica" is the subject, and in Japanese, "coffee" would be called the topic.

I can't find anything on the term "topic" as a classification of a part of a sentence in English. How is this defined in English?

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    "Topic" is a term that makes a lot more sense in Japanese grammar than in English. Whatever gets the wa marker is the topic, and often it's the subject, but wa and ga are different.
    – John Lawler
    Jun 6, 2022 at 3:10
  • Indeed, I understand the wa-marked topic is a non-logical particle (will never change the logic of the sentence, only emphasize something as a topic) and that, even when the topic and subject are identical, there's still a hidden, implied ga subject with the same noun/pronoun but isn't (redundantly) spoken. Regardless, though, we do still have those phrases that mean the same thing in English (Eg. "regarding __," "as for __," etc.) So in English grammar, how do we define such phrases in terms of "parts of a sentence"?
    – gills
    Jun 6, 2022 at 7:05
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    In English grammar, they're called a number of things, usually by form or function - prepositional phrases, conversational linkers, etc.
    – John Lawler
    Jun 6, 2022 at 12:25
  • I use the functional classification: pragmatic marker, discourse related, topic focusing. It's a parenthetical, here fronting the main clause.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Jun 6, 2022 at 16:37
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    Lexico defines "regarding" in this context as a preposition (although I'm sure there are reasons for questioning that classification). You can compare other prepositions like re.
    – Stuart F
    Jun 6, 2022 at 21:33

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In the terminology of Huddleston & Pullum (2002), "regarding coffee" is a domain adjunct consisting of a prepositional phrase.

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