Focus Strategies in African Languages
eBook - PDF

Focus Strategies in African Languages

The Interaction of Focus and Grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic

  1. 330 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Focus Strategies in African Languages

The Interaction of Focus and Grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Focus Strategies in African Languages by Enoch Oladé Aboh,Katharina Hartmann,Malte Zimmermann in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Grammar & Punctuation. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Contents
  3. Focus and grammar: The contribution of African languages
  4. Nuclear stress in eastern Benue-Kwa (Niger-Congo)
  5. Investigating prosodic focus marking in Northern Sotho
  6. Preverbal objects and information structure in Benue-Congo
  7. Focus strategies and the incremental development of semantic representations: Evidence from Bantu
  8. Ex-situ focus in Kikuyu
  9. Focus in the Force-Fin system: Information structure in Cushitic languages
  10. Coptic relative tenses: The profile of a morpho-syntactic flagging device
  11. Identificational operation as a focus strategy in Byali
  12. Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A reanalysis of the particle nee/cee
  13. Narrative focus strategies in Gur and Kwa
  14. Focused versus non-focused wh-phrases
  15. Backmatter