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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.
List of contents
Focus: The African way
Enoch Oladé Aboh, Katharina Hartmann, and Malte Zimmermann
Part I Focus and prosody
Nuclear stress in Eastern Benue-Kwa (Niger-Congo)
Victor Manfredi
Investigating prosodic focus marking in Northern Sotho
Sabine Zerbian
Part II Focus and word order
Preverbal objects and information structure in Benue-Congo
Tom Güldemann
Focus strategies and the incremental development of semantic representations: Evidence from Bantu
Lutz Marten
Part III Focus and morphosyntax
Identificational operation as a focus strategy in Byali
Brigitte Reineke
Focus or narrative construction?
Ines Fiedler and Anne Schwarz
Ex-situ focus in Kikuyu
Florian Schwarz
Focused versus non-focused wh-Phrases
Enoch Oladé Aboh
Coptic relative tenses: The Profile of a morpho-syntactic flagging device
Chris Reintges
Focus in the Force-Fin system: Information structure in Cushitic languages
Mara Frascarelli and Annarita Puglielli
Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A re-analysis of the particle nee/cee
Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann
About the author
Enoch Oladé Aboh, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
