A Study on Topicalization and Focalization in the Zanjani Dialect

Abstract

Topicalization and focalization are syntactic issues studied in a variety of languages. Topicalization is defined as the proposing of a constituent to the beginning of the sentence. It has the old information and the rest of the sentence is about it. Focalization, on the other hand, is a process in which a constituent may stay put in its canonical position represented by a relativizer or may be preposed, but bearing the new information. To study these issues, we studied the Zanjani dialect, an offshoot of the Azeri language. We analyzed sentences in a number of film scripts and found that the minimal program may not be able to deal with these issues in this dialect, and that information structure theories may be used to consider topicalization and focalization in this dialect.