TY - BOOK ID - 77927366 TI - Focus Strategies in African Languages AU - Aboh, Enoch Oladé AU - Fiedler, Ines AU - Frascarelli, Mara AU - Güldemann, Tom AU - Hartmann, Katharina AU - Manfredi, Victor AU - Marten, Lutz AU - Puglielli, Annarita AU - Reineke, Brigitte AU - Schwarz, Anne AU - Schwarz, Florian AU - Zerbian, Sabine AU - Zimmermann, Malte AU - Reintges, Chris H PY - 2008 SN - 1282194666 9786612194665 3110199092 9783110199093 9783110195934 3110195933 9781282194663 6612194669 PB - Berlin Boston DB - UniCat KW - Niger-Congo languages KW - Afroasiatic languages KW - Focus (Linguistics) KW - Discourse analysis KW - Grammar, Comparative and general KW - Afrasian languages KW - Afro-Asiatic languages KW - Erythraic languages KW - Hamito-Semitic languages KW - Semito-Hamitic languages KW - African languages KW - Grammar. KW - Topic and comment KW - African languages. KW - pragmatics. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77927366 AB - 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. ER -