This paper investigates the structural properties of morphosyntactically
marked focus constructions, focussing on the often neglected
non-focal sentence part in African tone languages. <br>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. <br>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. <br>It is argued that we deal with a non-accidental,
systematic feature and that grammaticalization may conceal such basic
narrative structures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:Potsdam/oai:kobv.de-opus-ubp:873 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Fiedler, Ines, Schwarz, Anne |
| Contributors | Sonderforschungsbereich 632 Informationsstruktur <Berlin> |
| Publisher | Universität Potsdam, Extern. Extern |
| Source Sets | Potsdam University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632. - Vol. 3 |
| Rights | http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/doku/urheberrecht.php |
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