TY - CHAP A1 - Jakobi, Angelika T1 - Focus in an active/agentive alignment system : the case of Beria (Saharan) T2 - Papers on information structure in African languages : [resulted from the International Conference "Focus in African Languages" held October 6-8, 2005 at the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) in Berlin] / eds.: Ines Fiedler ... N2 - Beria, a member of the Saharan language family, is one of the rare languages in Africa exhibiting both an ergative and an active/agentive alignment system of grammatical relations.1 While the active/agentive pattern is shown by the participant reference markers, the ergative pattern is attested both in the constituent order and in the focus markers on the core constituents. In the pragmatically unmarked constituent order, the Agent constituent precedes the Patient constituent. An unmarked single constituent immediately preceding the verb may represent a Patient or a Subject argument. In this position, the Agent constituent requires the clitic GU. The focused Patient and Subject constituents are both either marked by the clitic DI or by a cleft construction. KW - Thema-Rhema-Gliederung KW - Saharanische Sprachen Y1 - 2006 UR - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/30999 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-309993 UR - http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/187.html?&L=1] SN - 1435-9588 SN - 0947-7055 VL - 46 SP - 129 EP - 142 PB - Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung CY - Berlin ER -