TY  - CHAP
A1  - Downing, Laura J.
T1  - Introduction
T2  - Questions in Bantu languages : prosodies and positions; [papers ... at the Workshop on Bantu Wh-questions, held at the Institut des Sciences de l'Homme, Univ.; Lyon 2, on 25 - 26 March 2011 ...] / Laura J. Downing (ed.), Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin;  ZASPil  Vol. 55, S. 1-6
N2  - In spite of this long history, most work to date on the phonology-syntax interface in Bantu languages suffers from limitations, due to the range of expertise required: intonation, phonology, syntax. Quite generally, intonational studies on African languages are extremely rare. Most of the existing data has not been the subject of careful phonetic analysis, whether of the prosody of neutral sentences or of questions or other focus structures. There are important gaps in our knowledge of Bantu syntax which in turn limit our understanding of the phonology-syntax interface. Recent developments in syntactic theory have provided a new way of thinking about the type of syntactic information that phonology can refer to and have raised new questions: Do only syntactic constituent edges condition prosodic phrasing? Do larger domains such as syntactic phases, or even other factors, like argument and adjunct distinctions, play a role? Further, earlier studies looked at a limited range of syntactic constructions. Little research exists on the phonology of focus or of sentences with non-canonical word order in Bantu languages. Both the prosody and the syntax of complex sentences, questions and dislocations are understudied for Bantu languages. Our project aims to remedy these gaps in our knowledge by bringing together a research team with all the necessary expertise. Further, by undertaking the intonational, phonological and syntactic analysis of several languages we can investigate whether there is any correlation among differences in morphosyntactic and prosodic properties that might also explain differences in phrasing and intonation. It will also allow us to investigate whether there are cross-linguistically common prosodic patterns for particular morpho-syntactic structure.
KW  - Bantusprachen
KW  - Interrogativsatz
KW  - Intonation <Linguistik>
KW  - Relativsatz
KW  - Wortstellung
Y1  - 2011
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/31057
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-310578
UR  - http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/zaspil.html
SN  - 1435-9588
SN  - 0947-7055
VL  - 55
SP  - 1
EP  - 6
PB  - Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
CY  - Berlin
ER  -