{"title":"The Wolof argument-focus constructions as copulaless clefts","authors":"Corentin Bourdeau","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2011","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In Wolof (Niger-Congo), focus is expressed morphosyntactically via specific focus constructions. This article deals with two of them, namely the <jats:italic>subject-focus</jats:italic> and the <jats:italic>complement-focus</jats:italic> constructions. I propose to analyse them as copulaless cleft constructions of the form <jats:sc>focus | topic</jats:sc>, that is, constructions in which the focus and the topic are juxtaposed. In such clefts, the topic of the sentence is expressed by means of a noun phrase which is headed by the definite article la when the focus corresponds to the syntactic object, and by the morpheme a when the focus corresponds to the syntactic subject of the sentence.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2011","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In Wolof (Niger-Congo), focus is expressed morphosyntactically via specific focus constructions. This article deals with two of them, namely the subject-focus and the complement-focus constructions. I propose to analyse them as copulaless cleft constructions of the form focus | topic, that is, constructions in which the focus and the topic are juxtaposed. In such clefts, the topic of the sentence is expressed by means of a noun phrase which is headed by the definite article la when the focus corresponds to the syntactic object, and by the morpheme a when the focus corresponds to the syntactic subject of the sentence.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics was founded in 1979 and has established itself as an important refereed forum for publications in African linguistics. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics welcomes original contributions on all aspects of African language studies, synchronic as well as diachronic, theoretical as well as data-oriented. The journal further contains a list of recently published books on African languages and linguistics, which many libraries find to be of use for the acquisition of books. The Journal of African Languages and Linguistics is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope.
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