Focus marking in Bura: semantic uniformity matches syntactic heterogeneity

Hartmann, Katharina; Zimmermann, Malte

doi:10.1007/s11049-012-9174-4

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In this section we address verum expression in two Central Chadic languages (Bura, cf. Hartmann, Jacob & Zimmermann 2008;Hartmann & Zimmermann 2012), and South Marghi (cf. Hartmann 2013).…”

Section: Chadic Languages (Afro-asiatic)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Gutzmann

Hartmann

Matthewson

2020

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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The accent pattern known as verum focus is commonly understood as an ordinary alternative focus on the truth of a proposition. This standard view, which we call the focus accent thesis (Fat), can be contrasted with the lexical operator thesis (Lot), according to which the accent pattern that looks like focus in languages like German or English is actually not an instance of focus marking, but realizes a lexical verum predicate, whose function is to relate the current proposition to a question under discussion. Although it is hard to distinguish between the Fat and the Lot on the basis of German or English, a broader cross-linguistic perspective seems to favor the Lot. Drawing from fieldwork on Tsimshianic (Gitksan) and Chadic (Bura, South Marghi), we first show that in none of these languages is verum realized in the same way that ordinary alternative focus is marked. This sheds initial doubt on the unity of verum and focus. Secondly, the Fat predicts that a language cannot have co-occuring verum and focus, if it does not allow multiple foci, and that a language should allow them to co-occur if it allows for multiple foci. Again, while it is hard to find counterexamples in German or English, some of the data from our cross-linguistic investigation favor the Lot.

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“…In this section we address verum expression in two Central Chadic languages (Bura, cf. Hartmann, Jacob & Zimmermann 2008;Hartmann & Zimmermann 2012), and South Marghi (cf. Hartmann 2013).…”

Section: Chadic Languages (Afro-asiatic)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The focus marker does not appear in out-of-focus forms (cf. Hartmann & Zimmermann 2012 Note that, while different, the marking strategies for subject and non-subject focus are obviously related. Both involve the focus marker an and both are initial focus configurations.…”

Section: Buramentioning

confidence: 99%

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Gutzmann

Hartmann

Matthewson

2020

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…We will remain agnostic on the exact structure of (i), but we would like to point out that, unlike in cleft sentences proper, there is no indication that the subject in ( 6) is not in its canonical position in Spec,TP, nor is there any sign of relative clause morphology, which is otherwise typical of clefts. See Hartmann and Zimmermann (2012) for a discussion of parallel facts in Central Chadic Bura. We will also set aside the issue of whether the variants in (6a) and (i) are two structurally distinct ways of expressing subject focus, or whether (6a) is in fact a PF-reduced shorter version of (i).…”

Section: Institutional Review Board Statement: Not Applicablementioning

confidence: 99%

Focus Fronting in a Language with In Situ Marking: The Case of Mǝ̀dʉ́mbà

Zimmermann,

Kouankem

2024

Languages

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This paper discusses the structural realisation of contrastive focus in the Grassfields Bantu language Bamileke Mǝ̀dʉ́mbà, yet another language with grammatically optional focus fronting. We show that the realisation of contrastive focus in Mǝ̀dʉ́mbà is by default marked in situ with the morphological focus marker á. We further show that á introduces an additional, not-at-issue exhaustivity inference as part of its lexical meaning. Taken together, this means that two often-discussed interpretive triggers of grammatically optional focus fronting, namely, contrastivity and exhaustivity, are not responsible for triggering Mǝ̀dʉ́mbà’s focus left-dislocation. Rather, the main semantic contribution of focus fronting consists in triggering an existence presupposition, a discourse-semantic effect well known from other focus–background bipartitions, possibly in combination with other, softer discourse-semantic effects, such as the special emphasis required in cases of discourse unexpectedness.

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Left Periphery of the Clause: Primarily Illustrated for Italian

Rizzi

Bocci

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

142

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The analysis of the left periphery was one of the first topics of the research program referred to as “the cartography of syntactic structures.” This program is based on the observation that syntactic representations are complex structures consisting of sequences of hierarchically organized functional elements. Drawing detailed maps of such structures has been shown to have valuable heuristic power in the investigation of how syntactic structures interact with principles constraining syntactic computations and the interfaces with sound and meaning. The study of the left periphery has been extensively pursued in the last years. The strategy initially adopted, in the mid 1990s, has been to analyze in great detail the left periphery in a language, Italian; then, the initial map based on Italian was used as a benchmark for comparative analyses, starting the comparison with closely related languages, and progressively extending it to typologically and historically distant languages. In this case study we retrace this development, starting from the initial map based on Italian, in the context of the early cartographic studies. We then move to extensions and modifications, addressing specific points in which the cross‐linguistic evidence has played a key role. We dwell on the criterial approach, according to which the left periphery of the clause is populated by a sequence of functional heads (Top, Foc, Q, etc.) attracting phrases with matching features, and guiding the interpretation of such configurations at the interfaces with sound and meaning. We subsequently address some interpretive properties of topic and focus structures at the interfaces in connection with the assignment of the prosodic properties and the proper use in discourse. The case study concludes with a discussion of the parametrizations which must be assumed and of the prospects of tracing back the observed properties to deeper explanatory principles of syntactic computation.

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Focus marking in Bura: semantic uniformity matches syntactic heterogeneity

Cited by 11 publications

References 40 publications

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Verum focus is verum, not focus: Cross-linguistic evidence

Focus Fronting in a Language with In Situ Marking: The Case of Mǝ̀dʉ́mbà

Left Periphery of the Clause: Primarily Illustrated for Italian

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