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In our presentation we will outline the verb system of Lelemi and concentrate on certain “focal” aspects which are of primary interest to us. Lelemi has two TAMP paradigms: one constituting the so-called “simple tenses”, the other the so-called “relative tenses” (Allan 1973), although not every “simple tense” has a counterpart in the “relative tenses”. The simple paradigm is formed by subject prefixes (prefixed pronouns for 1st or 2nd person and noun class pronouns for 3rd persons) and the verb form whereas the relative paradigm is build up by the obligatory use of an external subject noun, an invariable verb prefix, and the verb form. While the simple paradigm is used in quite a lot of syntactic environments the relative paradigm only shows up in relative clauses with the subject being the head as well as in subject and sentence focus constructions including questions concerning the subject. We will show some interesting interactions between the grammatical expression of focus and the verb system and sketch the grammaticalisation path of the morpheme nà.
Information structure
(2007)
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.
0. Introduction 1. Observations concerning the structure of morphosyntactically marked focus constructions 1.1 First observation: SF vs. NSF asymmetry 1.2 Second observation: NSF-NAR parallelism 1.3 Affirmative ex-situ focus constructions (SF, NSF), and narrative clauses (NAR) 2. Grammaticalization 2.1 Cleft hypothesis 2.2 Movement hypothesis 2.3 Narrative hypothesis 2.3.1 Back- or Foregrounding? 2.3.2 Converse directionality of FM and conjunction 3. Language specific analysis 4. Conclusionary remarks References
This paper investigates the structural properties of morphosyntactically marked focus constructions, focussing on the often neglected non-focal sentence part in African tone languages. Based on new empirical evidence from five Gur and Kwa languages, we claim that these focus expressions have to be analysed as biclausal constructions even though they do not represent clefts containing restrictive relative clauses. First, we relativize the partly overgeneralized assumptions about structural correspondences between the out-of-focus part and relative clauses, and second, we show that our data do in fact support the hypothesis of a clause coordinating pattern as present in clause sequences in narration. It is argued that we deal with a non-accidental, systematic feature and that grammaticalization may conceal such basic narrative structures.
Focus in Gur and Kwa
(2006)
The project investigates focus phenomena in the two genetically relatedWest African Gur and Kwa language groups of the Niger-Congo phylum. Most of its members are tone languages, they are similar with respect to word order typology (all are SVO languages), but of divergent morphological type (agglutinating Gur versus isolating Kwa).
Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, allgemeine Frage- und Problemstellungen bei der Untersuchung des Phänomens Fokus in ausgewählten Gur- und Kwasprachen vorzustellen, d.h. unsere Forschungsvorhaben kurz zu skizzieren, ohne dass wir bereits auf Ergebnisse eingehen können. Dieser Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über das Forschungsfeld, damit verbundene Problemstellungen und die von uns anvisierten Aufgaben und Methoden: - Was verstehen wir unter Fokus? - Warum sind die Gur- und Kwasprachen für diese Untersuchung von Relevanz? - Welche Korrelationen lassen sich zwischen Struktur und semantisch/pragmatischen Merkmalen erkennen? - Welche Entwicklung haben Fokusstrukturen genommen? - Welche methodischen Grundlagen liegen unseren Untersuchungen zugrunde?
Focus expressions in Foodo
(2006)