Wh-Questions in Chewa and Tumbuka : Positions and Prosodies
- This paper presents a preliminary survey of the positions and prosodies associated with Wh-questions in two Bantu languages spoken in Malawi. The paper shows that the two languages are similar in requiring focused subjects to be clefted. Both also require 'which' questions and 'because of what' questions to be clefted or fronted. However, for other non-subjects Tumbuka rather uniformly imposes an IAV (immediately after the verb) requirement, while Chewa does not. In both languages, we found a strong tendency for there to be a prosodic phrase break following the Wh-word. In Tumbuka, this break follows from the general phrasing algorithm of the language, while in Chewa, I propose that the break can be best understood as following from the inherent prominence of Wh-words.
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| Author: | Laura J. Downing |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-310598 |
| URL: | http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/zaspil540.html |
| ISSN: | 1435-9588 |
| ISSN: | 0947-7055 |
| Parent Title (English): | 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. 23-46 |
| Publisher: | Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft |
| Place of publication: | Berlin |
| Document Type: | Part of a Book |
| Language: | English |
| Year of Completion: | 2011 |
| Year of first Publication: | 2011 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2013/11/14 |
| GND Keyword: | Interrogativsatz; Prosodie; Intonation <Linguistik>; Chewa-Sprache; Tumbuka-Sprache |
| Volume: | 55 |
| Page Number: | 24 |
| First Page: | 23 |
| Last Page: | 46 |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 381155102 |
| Sammlungen: | Linguistik |
| Linguistik-Klassifikation: | Linguistik-Klassifikation: Syntax |
| Linguistik-Klassifikation: Phonetik/Phonologie / Phonetics/Phonology | |
| Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte: | ZAS papers in linguistics : ZASPiL / ZASPiL 55 = Questions in Bantu Languages : Prosodies and Positions |
| : | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-310439 |
| Licence (German): |  Deutsches Urheberrecht |
