Linguistik
Refine
Document Type
- Article (5) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (5) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (5)
Keywords
- Informationsstruktur (5) (remove)
Institute
- Extern (1)
Focus expressions in Yom
(2006)
This paper deals with the means for expressing the pragmatic category of focus in Yom, which is an Oti-Volta language of the Yom-Nawdem group spoken by about 74,000 people (Gordon 2005, online version) in the department of Donga in Northern Benin. The study is based on results of my field research carried out in March/April 2005 in Djougou (Benin), within the framework of the project “Focus in Gur and Kwa languages”. Main aim of this fieldwork was to study the expression of focus in Yom. Regarding the basic grammatical structure of the language, I mainly rely on various publications by Beacham (1969, 1991, and 1997).
Low tone spreading in Buli
(2003)
In Buli, tone indicates lexical information as well as grammatical information. The changing of tone patterns regularly observed on lexemes is covered best by an autosegmental approach with autonomous tonal and segmental tiers. It reveals considerable deviations between underlying and surfacing tones at several morpho- yntactic points. Realization of tone is sometimes oppressed or delayed. Cause for such disturbances is in all cases a low tone which spreads to the right and affects following high tones with different results. The aim of this paper is to show how L spreading acts and how it is integrated in the system of tonal contrast.
Welchen Bedingungen unterliegt menschliche Kommunikation? Welche sprachlichen Mittel verwendet ein Sprecher um sicherzustellen, dass sein Zuhörer tatsächlich das versteht, was er kommunizieren möchte? Wie also »verpacken« wir wichtige und weniger wichtige Informationen im alltäglichen Diskurs? Diesen und anderen Fragen geht der SFB 632 »Informationsstruktur«, ein gemeinsames Forschungsunternehmen von Linguisten verschiedener Teildisziplinen der Universität Potsdam und der Humboldt-Universität, nach.
Buli is an Oti-Volta tone language spoken in Northern Ghana. This paper outlines the basic features of its tonal system and explores whether and in which way pitch respectively phonemic tone is approached as a means to indicate the pragmatic category of focus. Pursued are cases with focus-related surface tone changes as well as cases where pitch could help to disambiguate between broad and narrow foci. It is argued that focus is not consistently encoded by pitch or tone. Parallel findings for the closely related languages Kopen o (phonetic symbol)nni and Dagbani suggest that the apparent lack of significant prosodic focus signals in Buli might pertain to a larger group of tonal languages of the Gur family.