Focus Strategies in African Languages : : The Interaction of Focus and Grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic / / ed. by Enoch Oladé Aboh, Katharina Hartmann, Malte Zimmermann.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Asian Studies Backlist (2000-2014) eBook Package
• MitwirkendeR: Aboh, Enoch Oladé,; Fiedler, Ines,; Frascarelli, Mara,; Güldemann, Tom,; Hartmann, Katharina,; Manfredi, Victor,; Marten, Lutz,; Puglielli, Annarita,; Reineke, Brigitte,; Reintges, Chris H.,; Schwarz, Anne,; Schwarz, Florian,; Zerbian, Sabine,; Zimmermann, Malte,
• HerausgeberIn: Aboh, Enoch Oladé,; Hartmann, Katharina,; Zimmermann, Malte,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2008]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] , 191
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (324 p.)

Over the last two decades, focus has become a prominent topic in major fields in linguistic research (syntax, semantics, phonology). Focus Strategies in African Languages contributes to the ongoing discussion of focus by investigating focus-related phenomena in a range of African languages, most of which have been under-represented in the theoretical literature on focus. The articles in the volume look at focus strategies in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages from several theoretical and methodological perspectives, ranging from detailed generative analysis to careful typological generalization across languages. Their common aim is to deepen our understanding of whether and how the information-structural category of focus is represented and marked in natural language. Topics investigated are, among others, the relation of focus and prosody, the effects of information structure on word order, ex situ versus in situ strategies of focus marking, the inventory of focus marking devices, focus and related constructions, focus-sensitive particles. The present inquiry into the focus systems of African languages has repercussions on existing theories of focus. It reveals new focus strategies as well as fine-tuned focus distinctions that are not discussed in the theoretical literature, which is almost exclusively based on well-documented intonation languages.

Table of Contents

I-IV -- Contents -- Focus and grammar: The contribution of African -- languages -- Part I. Focus and prosody -- Nuclear stress in eastern Benue-Kwa -- (Niger-Congo) -- Investigating prosodic focus marking in Northern -- Sotho -- Part II. Information structure and word -- order -- Preverbal objects and information structure in -- Benue-Congo -- Focus strategies and the incremental development of -- semantic representations: Evidence from Bantu -- Part III. Ex-situ and in-situ strategies of focus -- marking -- Ex-situ focus in Kikuyu -- Focus in the Force-Fin system: Information -- structure in Cushitic languages -- Coptic relative tenses: The profile of a -- morpho-syntactic flagging device -- Part IV. The inventory of focus marking -- devices -- Identificational operation as a focus strategy in -- Byali -- Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A reanalysis of the -- particle nee/cee -- Part V. Focus and related constructions -- Narrative focus strategies in Gur and Kwa -- Focused versus non-focused wh-phrases -- 315-326