Focus Strategies in African Languages

Over the last two decades, focus has become a prominent topic in major fields in linguistic research (syntax, semantics, phonology). Focus Strategies in African Languages contributes to the ongoing discussion of focus by investigating focus-related phenomena in a range of African languages, most of which have been under-represented in the theoretical literature on focus. The articles in the volume look at focus strategies in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages from several theoretical and methodological perspectives, ranging from detailed generative analysis to careful typological generalization across languages. Their common aim is to deepen our understanding of whether and how the information-structural category of focus is represented and marked in natural language. Topics investigated are, among others, the relation of focus and prosody, the effects of information structure on word order, ex situ versus in situ strategies of focus marking, the inventory of focus marking devices, focus and related constructions, focus-sensitive particles. The present inquiry into the focus systems of African languages has repercussions on existing theories of focus. It reveals new focus strategies as well as fine-tuned focus distinctions that are not discussed in the theoretical literature, which is almost exclusively based on well-documented intonation languages.

Auteur

Enoch Oladé Aboh, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany.

Contenu
Focus: The African way Enoch Oladé Aboh, Katharina Hartmann, and Malte Zimmermann Part I Focus and prosody Nuclear stress in Eastern Benue-Kwa (Niger-Congo) Victor Manfredi Investigating prosodic focus marking in Northern Sotho Sabine Zerbian Part II Focus and word orderPreverbal objects and information structure in Benue-CongoTom Güldemann Focus strategies and the incremental development of semantic representations: Evidence from BantuLutz Marten Part III Focus and morphosyntaxIdentificational operation as a focus strategy in ByaliBrigitte Reineke Focus or narrative construction?Ines Fiedler and Anne Schwarz Ex-situ focus in KikuyuFlorian Schwarz Focused versus non-focused wh-PhrasesEnoch Oladé Aboh Coptic relative tenses: The Profile of a morpho-syntactic flagging deviceChris Reintges Focus in the Force-Fin system: Information structure in Cushitic languagesMara Frascarelli and Annarita Puglielli Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A re-analysis of the particle nee/ceeKatharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann