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Lexicology. Semantics --- Grammar --- Comparative linguistics

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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.

Niger-Congo languages --- Afroasiatic languages --- Focus (Linguistics) --- Discourse analysis --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Afrasian languages --- Afro-Asiatic languages --- Erythraic languages --- Hamito-Semitic languages --- Semito-Hamitic languages --- African languages --- Grammar. --- Topic and comment --- African languages. --- pragmatics.

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This collection investigates the architecture of focus in linguistic theory from different theoretical perspectives. Research on focus and information structure in the last four decades has shown that the phenomenon of focus is highly complex, the theoretical approaches manifold, and the data highly sensitive. The main emphasis has been placed on the integration of the notion of focus in generative grammar. In recent years, however, the approaches to focus and information structure underwent a radical change in perspective. The theoretical concept of focus, its related terms and phenomena became the object of research. Along with it, the research questions shifted: instead of locating focus in the architecture of grammar, linguists investigate the architecture of focus itself. The central underlying idea of this collection is to document this change in perspective with the aim of isolating essential keystones and research areas in both the theoretical and empirical domain. The book is structured accordingly. Following the introduction, there are four main sections: The general section discusses the theoretical foundations of focus within grammar. The second section hosts papers which investigate the representation of focus and topic at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The third section discusses the phonological representation of focus and its relation to meaning. The papers of the final section investigate different types of focus constructions in a variety languages. The collection of papers on the architecture of focus, its interpretation and representation mirror the establishment of the focus research field.

Grammar --- Focus (Linguistics) --- Generative grammar. --- Grammar, Comparative and general. --- 801.56 --- Comparative grammar --- Grammar, Philosophical --- Grammar, Universal --- Language and languages --- Philosophical grammar --- Linguistics --- Philology --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Grammar, Generative --- Grammar, Transformational --- Grammar, Transformational generative --- Transformational generative grammar --- Transformational grammar --- Psycholinguistics --- Discourse analysis --- Syntaxis. Semantiek --- Grammar, Comparative --- Derivation --- Topic and comment --- 801.56 Syntaxis. Semantiek --- Focus (Linguistics). --- Generative grammar --- Focus. --- Syntax.

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The volume demonstrates the interdependence of man's language capacity and his other conceptual capacities. This enables linguistic structures to be minimalised, and for extra-linguistic domains to provide much of the interpretations of sound and meaning. Underspecification is demonstrated in the word formation of Indo-European, Late Archaic Chinese and modern Khmer; on the word- and sentence levels by the event structures of German; and in the information structure predominantly of languages with the so-called free word order: German, Slavic languages, Arabic compared with English and the ton

Underspecification (Linguistics) --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) --- Underspecification --- Pragmatics --- Grammar. --- Information structure. --- word formation.