The topology of a (complex) linguistic unit is a set of principles that define syntagmatic positions in it and govern their occupation. Most relevant is the topology of the sentence and the clause. At the level of the sentence, some positions are universally available for use in information structure. They are visualized in the following diagram.1
| left-dislocated topic | [ | initial focus | thematic material | final focus | ]S |
1 It is postulated as the Language Independent Preferred Order of Constituents (LIPOC) in Dik 1981:189ff.