Fiedler, Ines, and Schwarz, Anne (2005) Out-of-focus encoding in Gur and Kwa. Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure, 3. pp. 111-142.

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Abstract

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.

Item ID:	17813
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISBN:	978-3-937786-01-8
ISSN:	1866-4725
Keywords:	information structure; Gur languages; Kwa languages; focus; relative clauses
Additional Information:	Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure 3 (2005): 111–142. Ishihara, S., M. Schmitz, and A. Schwarz (eds.): © 2005 Ines Fiedler and Anne Schwarz
Date Deposited:	09 Nov 2011 03:28
FoR Codes:	20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2004 Linguistics > 200408 Linguistic Structures (incl Grammar, Phonology, Lexicon, Semantics) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture @ 100%
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