Abstract
This paper discusses the relation between focus marking and focus interpretation in Akan (Kwa), Ga (Kwa), and Ngamo (West Chadic). In all three languages, there is a special morphosyntactically marked focus/background construction, as well as morphosyntactically unmarked focus. We present data stemming from original fieldwork investigating whether marked focus/background constructions in these three languages also have additional interpretative effects apart from standard focus interpretation. Crosslinguistically, different additional inferences have been found for marked focus constructions, e.g. contrast (e.g. Vallduví, Enric & Maria Vilkuna. 1997. On rheme and kontrast. In Peter Culicover & Louise McNally (eds.), The limits of syntax (Syntax and semantics 29), 79–108. New York: Academic Press; Hartmann, Katharina & Malte Zimmermann. 2007b. In place – Out of place: Focus in Hausa. In Kerstin Schwabe & Susanne Winkler (eds.), On information structure, meaning and form, 365–403. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.; Destruel, Emilie & Leah Velleman. 2014. Refining contrast: Empirical evidence from the English it-cleft. In Christopher Piñón (ed.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 10, 197–214. Paris: Colloque de syntaxe et sémantique à Paris (CSSP). http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss10/), exhaustivity (e.g. É. Kiss, Katalin. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74(2). 245–273.; Hartmann, Katharina & Malte Zimmermann. 2007a. Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A re-evaluation of the particle nee/cee. In Enoch O. Aboh, Katharina Hartmann & Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Focus strategies in African languages: The interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic (Trends in Linguistics 191), 241–263. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.), and existence (e.g. Rooth, Mats. 1999. Association with focus or association with presupposition? In Peter Bosch & Rob van der Sandt (eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives, 232–244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.; von Fintel, Kai & Lisa Matthewson. 2008. Universals in semantics. The Linguistic Review 25(1–2). 139–201). This paper investigates these three inferences. In Akan and Ga, the marked focus constructions are found to be contrastive, while in Ngamo, no effect of contrast was found. We also show that marked focus constructions in Ga and Akan trigger exhaustivity and existence presuppositions, while the marked construction in Ngamo merely gives rise to an exhaustive conversational implicature and does not trigger an existence presupposition. Instead, the marked construction in Ngamo merely indicates salience of the backgrounded part via a morphological background marker related to the definite determiner (Schuh, Russell G. 2005. Yobe state, Nigeria as a linguistic area. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 31(2). 77–94; Güldemann, Tom. 2016. Maximal backgrounding=focus without (necessary) focus encoding. Studies in Language 40(3). 551–590). The paper thus contributes to the understanding of the semantics of marked focus constructions across languages and points to the crosslinguistic variation in expressing and interpreting marked focus/background constructions.
Acknowledgements
This research was partly funded by the German Science Association (DFG), project A5 “Focus realization, focus interpretation and focus use from a cross-linguistic perspective” of the Collaborative Research Center 632 “Information Structure”, which enabled our fieldwork in Ghana and Nigeria, as well as research visits to Germany by our third author. We would like to thank the DFG and Malte Zimmermann for making this collaboration possible. In addition, we particularly thank our language consultants. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and Susanne Genzel for collaborating with us in investigating the prosodic realization of focus in Akan, Ga and Ngamo, as well as the audiences of the Final Conference of the SFB 632 Information Structure: “Advances in Information Structure Research 2003–2015”, and the Budapest-Potsdam-Lund Linguistics Colloquium 2016 for their comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are our own.
References
Akmajian, Adrian. 1970. On deriving cleft sentences from pseudo-cleft sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 1(2). 149–168.Search in Google Scholar
Ameka, Felix K. 2010. Information packaging constructions in Kwa: Micro-variation and typology. In Enoch O. Aboh & James Essegbey (eds.), Topics in Kwa syntax (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory), 141–176. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-90-481-3189-1_7Search in Google Scholar
AnderBois, Scott & Robert Henderson. 2015. Linguistically establishing discourse context: Two case studies from Mayan languages. In M. Ryan Bochnak & Lisa Matthewson (eds.), Methodologies in semantic fieldwork, 207–232. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190212339.003.0009Search in Google Scholar
Arkoh, Ruby & Lisa Matthewson. 2013. A familiar definite article in Akan. Lingua 123. 1–30.10.1016/j.lingua.2012.09.012Search in Google Scholar
Atlas, Jay D. & Stephen C. Levinson. 1981. It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version). In Peter Cole (ed.), Radical pragmatics, 1–62. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Barlew, Jefferson. 2014. Salience, uniqueness, and the definite determiner -tè in Bulu. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 24. 619–639.10.3765/salt.v24i0.2992Search in Google Scholar
Bearth, Thomas. 2002. Fokus im Akan – Outline. Paper presented at the linguistic colloquium of the seminar of African studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, 28 May.Search in Google Scholar
Beaver, David I. & Brady Z. Clark. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning (Explorations in Semantics 5). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444304176Search in Google Scholar
Bende-Farkas, Ágnes. 2006. Comparing English and Hungarian focus. Ms University of Stuttgart.Search in Google Scholar
Boadi, Lawrence A. 1974. Focus-marking in Akan. Linguistics 140. 5–57.10.1515/ling.1974.12.140.5Search in Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2003. On D-trees, beans, and B-accents (Contrastive topic and its relation to focus in English). Linguistics and Philosophy 26(5). 511–545.10.1023/A:1025887707652Search in Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2004. Focus suppositions. Theoretical Linguistics 30(1). 65–76.10.1515/thli.2004.007Search in Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2011. Conditional exhaustivity presuppositions in clefts (and definites). Ms University of Vienna.Search in Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel & Manuel Križ. 2013. It’s that, and that’s it! Exhaustivity and homogeneity presuppositions in clefts (and definites). Semantics and Pragmatics 6(6). 1–29.10.3765/sp.6.6Search in Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 25–56. New York & London: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Davis, Henry, Lisa Matthewson & Scott Shank. 2004. Clefts vs. nominal predicates in two Salish languages. In Donna B. Gerdts & Lisa Matthewson (eds.), Studies in Salish linguistics in honor of M. Dale Kinkade (University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics 10), 100–117. Missoula, MT: University of Montana Press.Search in Google Scholar
Destruel, Emilie & Leah Velleman. 2014. Refining contrast: Empirical evidence from the English it-cleft. In Christopher Piñón (ed.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 10, 197–214. Paris: Colloque de syntaxe et sémantique à Paris (CSSP). http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss10/.Search in Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1996. Focus, pragmatic presupposition, and activated propositions. Journal of Pragmatics 26(4). 475–523.10.1016/0378-2166(95)00059-3Search in Google Scholar
Duah, Reginald A. 2015. Exhaustive focus marking in Akan. In Felix Bildhauer & Mira Grubic (eds.), Mood, exhaustivity and focus marking in non-European languages (Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) 19), 1–28. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam. https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/8120/file/isis19.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Dufter, Andreas. 2009. Clefting and discourse organization: Comparing Germanic and Romance. In Andreas Dufter & Daniel Jacob (eds.), Focus and background in Romance languages (Studies in language companion series 112), 83–121. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.112.05dufSearch in Google Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74(2). 245–273.10.1353/lan.1998.0211Search in Google Scholar
Ermisch, Sonja. 2006. Focus and topic constructions in Akan. In Sonja Ermisch (ed.), Focus and topic in African languages (Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter 18), 51–68. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Fiedler, Ines. 2006. Focus expressions in Yom. Gur Paper/Cahiers Voltaïques 7. 112–121.Search in Google Scholar
Fiedler, Ines, Katharina Hartmann, Brigitte Reineke, Anne Schwarz & Malte Zimmermann. 2010. Subject focus in West African languages. In Malte Zimmermann & Caroline Féry (eds.), Information structure: Theoretical, typological, and experimental perspectives, 234–257. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570959.003.0010Search in Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne. 2013. Lexical and post-lexical tones in Akan. Potsdam: University of Potsdam dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne & Reginald A. Duah. 2015. H tone insertion on verbs in na-focus sentence in Akan. Paper presented at morphosyntactic triggers of tone: New data and theories, Leipzig University, 12–13 June.Search in Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne & Mira Grubic. 2011. Focus (non)-realization in Ngamo (West Chadic). Paper presented at the workshop on the phonological marking of focus and topic at GLOW 34, University of Vienna, 27 April–1 May.Search in Google Scholar
Genzel, Susanne & Frank Kügler. 2010. How to elicit semi-spontaneous focus realizations with specific tonal patterns. In Svetlana Petrova & Mira Grubic (eds.), Linguistic fieldnotes I: Information structure in different African languages (Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) 13), 77–102. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.Search in Google Scholar
Geurts, Bart & Rob van der Sandt. 2004. Interpreting focus. Theoretical Linguistics 30(1). 1–44.10.1515/thli.2004.005Search in Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 3 (Speech Acts), 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Grubic, Mira. 2011. On the projection behaviour of freely associating moɗ- (only) in Bole (West Chadic). Columbus, OH: Department of Linguistics, OSU.Search in Google Scholar
Grubic, Mira. 2012. The West-Chadic particle kapa as an end-of-scale marker. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Search in Google Scholar
Grubic, Mira. 2015. Focus and alternative-sensitivity in Ngamo (West Chadic). Potsdam: University of Potsdam dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Grubic, Mira & Agata Renans. 2017. Definiteness Marking on VPs/TPs in Ga and Ngamo. In Vera Hohaus & Wanda Rothe (eds.), TripleA 3: Fieldwork perspectives on the semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian languages, 1–15. Tübingen: Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen.Search in Google Scholar
Grubic, Mira & Malte Zimmermann. 2011. Conventional and free association with focus in Ngamo (West Chadic). In Ingo Reich, Eva Horch & Dennis Pauly (eds.), Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 15, 291–305. http://universaar.uni-saarland.de/monographien/volltexte/2011/30/pdf/SinnUndBedeutung15.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Gryllia, Styliani. 2009. On the nature of preverbal focus in Greek: A theoretical and experimental approach. Leiden: University of Leiden dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Guerini, Federica. 2006. Language alternation strategies in multilingual settings: A case study : Ghanaian immigrants in Northern Italy. Bern & Berlin: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar
Güldemann, Tom. 2016. Maximal backgrounding=focus without (necessary) focus encoding. Studies in Language 40(3). 551–590.10.1075/sl.40.3.03gulSearch in Google Scholar
Halvorsen, Per-Kristian 1978. The syntax and semantics of cleft constructions. Austin, TX: University of Texas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Hartmann, Katharina & Malte Zimmermann. 2007a. Exhaustivity marking in Hausa: A re-evaluation of the particle nee/cee. In Enoch O. Aboh, Katharina Hartmann & Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Focus strategies in African languages: The interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic (Trends in Linguistics 191), 241–263. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Hartmann, Katharina & Malte Zimmermann. 2007b. In place – Out of place: Focus in Hausa. In Kerstin Schwabe & Susanne Winkler (eds.), On information structure, meaning and form, 365–403. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.100.20harSearch in Google Scholar
Hedberg, Nancy. 2000. The referential status of clefts. Language 76(4). 891–920.10.2307/417203Search in Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1981. Exhaustiveness and the semantics of clefts. In Victoria Burke & James Pustejovsky (eds.), North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 11, 124–142. Amherst: GLSA.Search in Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 2013. Focus and exhaustivity revisited. Paper presented at the annual conference of the German linguistic society (DGfS) 35, University of Potsdam, 12–15 March.Search in Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1928. A modern English grammar on historical principles. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Search in Google Scholar
Kadmon, Nirit & Aldo Sevi. 2011. Without ‘focus’. In Barbara H. Partee, Michael Glanzberg & Jurgis Skilters (eds.), Formal semantics and pragmatics. Discourse, context and models (The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 6). Manhattan, KS: New Prairie Press.10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1585Search in Google Scholar
Karttunen, Lauri. 1973. Presuppositions of compound sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 4(2). 169–193.Search in Google Scholar
Kobele, Gregory & Harold Torrence. 2006. Intervention and focus in Asante Twi. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 46. 161–184.10.21248/zaspil.46.2006.341Search in Google Scholar
Koch, Karsten & Malte Zimmermann. 2010. Focus-sensitive operators in Nłeʔkepmxcin (Thompson River Salish). In Martin Prinzhorn, Viola Schmitt & Sarah Zobel (eds.), Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 14, 237–255. https://www.univie.ac.at/sub14/proceedings.html.Search in Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 2004. Interpreting focus: Presupposed or expressive meanings? A comment on Geurts and van der Sandt. Theoretical Linguistics 30(1). 123–136.10.1515/thli.2004.002Search in Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55(3–4). 243–276.10.1556/ALing.55.2008.3-4.2Search in Google Scholar
Kropp Dakubu, Mary E. 1992. Contrast in context: Topic, focus and definiteness in Ga. Journal of West African Languages 22(2). 3–16.Search in Google Scholar
Kropp Dakubu, Mary E. 2005. The syntax of focus in Ga and the significance of related constructions. Paper presented at the conference focus in African languages, Humboldt University, Berlin, 6–8 October.Search in Google Scholar
Kučerová, Ivona. 2012. Grammatical marking of givenness. Natural Language Semantics 20(1). 1–30.10.1017/CBO9780511740084.005Search in Google Scholar
Langendoen, D. Terence & Harris B. Savin. 1971. The projection problem for presuppositions. In Charles J. Fillmore & D. Terence Langendoen (eds.), Studies in linguistic semantics, 55–62. New York: Holt.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul (ed.). 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the world. 16th ed. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.Search in Google Scholar
Marfo, Charles & Charles Bodomo. 2005. Information structuring in Akan: Question-word fronting and focus constructions. Studies in African Linguistics 34(2). 179–208.10.32473/sal.v34i2.107330Search in Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa. 2004. On the methodology of semantic fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(4). 369–415.10.1086/429207Search in Google Scholar
McCracken, Chelsea. 2013. Relative clauses in Asante Twi. Rice working papers in linguistics 4. 1–28.Search in Google Scholar
Ofori, Seth A. 2011. On the basic focus marker, and the basic focus sentence, in Akan (Twi). Nordic Journal of African Studies 20(3). 241–262.Search in Google Scholar
Onea, Edgar. 2010. Hungarian focus and event anaphors. Ms University of Göttingen.Search in Google Scholar
Onea, Edgar & David Beaver. 2011. Hungarian focus is not exhausted. In Ed Cormany, Satoshi Ito & David Lutz (eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 19, 342–359. https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/issue/view/90.Search in Google Scholar
Percus, Orin. 1997. Prying open the cleft. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Search in Google Scholar
Pfeil, Simone, Susanne Genzel & Frank Kügler. 2015. Empirical investigation of focus and exhaustivity in Akan. In Felix Bildhauer & Mira Grubic (eds.), Mood, exhaustivity and focus marking in non-European languages (Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) 19), 87–109. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.Search in Google Scholar
Renans, Agata. 2016a. A cross-categorial definite determiner: Evidence from Ga (Kwa). In Mary Moroney, Carol-Rose Little, Jacob Collard & Dan Burgdorf (eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 26, 23–42. https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/issue/view/154.Search in Google Scholar
Renans, Agata. 2016b. Exhaustivity: On exclusive particles, clefts, and progressive aspect in Ga (Kwa). Potsdam: University of Potsdam dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Renans, Agata. 2017. Exclusive particles in Ga (Kwa). Journal of Semantics 34(4). 555–585.10.1093/jos/ffx005Search in Google Scholar
Renans, Agata, Nadine Bade & Joseph P. DeVeaugh-Geiss. 2017. Universals in pragmatics: maximize presupposition vs. obligatory implicatures. Proceedings of GLOW in Asia XIm vol II, MIT working papers in Linguistics 85. 147–161.Search in Google Scholar
Repp, Sophie. 2010. Defining ‘contrast’ as an information-structural notion in grammar. Lingua 120(6). 1333–1345.10.1016/j.lingua.2009.04.006Search in Google Scholar
Roberts, Craige. 2012. Information Structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics and Pragmatics 5(6). 1–69. http://semprag.org/article/view/sp.5.6/pdf.10.3765/sp.5.6Search in Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats 1985. Association with focus. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1(1). 75–116.10.1007/BF02342617Search in Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1996. Focus. In Shalom Lappin (ed.), The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, 271–297. London: Basil Blackwell.10.1111/b.9780631207498.1997.00013.xSearch in Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1999. Association with focus or association with presupposition? In Peter Bosch & Rob van der Sandt (eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives, 232–244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Saah, Kofi K. 1988. Wh-questions in Akan. Journal of West African Languages 18(1). 17–28.Search in Google Scholar
Saah, Kofi K. 1995. Studies in Akan syntax, acquisition and sentence processing. Ottawa: University of Ottawa dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul. 1973. Focus and relativization. Language 49(1). 19–46.10.2307/412101Search in Google Scholar
Schuh, Russell G. 1971. Reconstruction of the syntax of subject emphasis in certain Chadic languages. Studies in African Linguistics Supplement 2. 67–77.Search in Google Scholar
Schuh, Russell G. 1982. Questioned and focussed subjects and objects in Bade/Ngizim. In Herrmann Jungraithmayr (ed.), The Chad languages in the Hamitosemitic-Nigritic border area: Papers of the Marburg symposion, 1979, 160–174. Berlin: Reimer.Search in Google Scholar
Schuh, Russell G. 2004. Ngamo genitives. Unpublished ms http://aflang.humanities.ucla.edu/language-materials/chadic-languages/yobe/ngamo/.Search in Google Scholar
Schuh, Russell G. 2005. Yobe state, Nigeria as a linguistic area. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 31(2). 77–94.10.3765/bls.v31i2.825Search in Google Scholar
Schuh, Russell G. 2009. Ngamo tones and clitics. Unpublished ms http://aflang.humanities.ucla.edu/language-materials/chadic-languages/yobe/ngamo/.Search in Google Scholar
Schwarz, Florian. 2013. Two kinds of definites cross-linguistically. Language and Linguistics Compass 7(10). 534–559.10.1111/lnc3.12048Search in Google Scholar
Schwarzschild, Roger. 1999. GIVENness, AvoidF and other constraints on the placement of accent. Natural Language Semantics 7(2). 141–177.10.1023/A:1008370902407Search in Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, Anna. 1981a. Compositionality in focus. Folia Linguistica 15(1–2). 141–161.10.1515/flin.1981.15.1-2.141Search in Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, Anna. 1981b. The semantics of topic-focus articulation. In Jan Groenendijk, Theo Janssen & Martin Stokhof (eds.), Formal methods in the study of language, 513–541. Amsterdam: Matematisch Centrum.Search in Google Scholar
Vallduví, Enric & Maria Vilkuna. 1997. On rheme and kontrast. In Peter Culicover & Louise McNally (eds.), The limits of syntax (Syntax and semantics 29), 79–108. New York: Academic Press.10.1163/9789004373167_005Search in Google Scholar
Velleman, Dan, David Beaver, Emilie Destruel, Dylan Bumford, Edgar Onea & Liz Coppock. 2012. It-clefts are IT (inquiry terminating) constructions. In Anca Chereches (ed.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 22, 441–460. https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/issue/view/87.Search in Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Lisa Matthewson. 2008. Universals in semantics. The Linguistic Review 25(1–2). 139–201.10.1515/TLIR.2008.004Search in Google Scholar
Wedgwood, Daniel, Gergely Pethő & Ronnie Cann. 2006. Hungarian ‘focus position’ and English it-clefts: The semantic underspecification of ‘focus’ readings. Ms University of Edinburgh. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Hungarian-focus-position-and-English-it-clefts-Wedgwood-Pethő/3244cb8f2e98bf5a7a3892e8a14643e98a4202e0.Search in Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Malte. 2008. Contrastive focus and emphasis. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55(3–4). 347–360.10.1556/ALing.55.2008.3-4.9Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
