The Expression of Information Structure. a Documentation of Its Diversity Across Africa |
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Editor:
| Fiedler, Ines Schwarz, Anne |
Series title: | Typological Studies in Language (Tsl) Ser. |
ISBN: | 978-1-282-55863-2 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2010 |
Publisher: | John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Book Format: | Ebook |
List Price: | USD $158.00 |
Book Description:
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This book analyzes the different patterns found across subsaharan Africa to express information structure. Based on languages from all four African language phyla, it documents the great diversity of linguistic means used to encode information-structural phenomena and is therefore highly relevant for some of the most pertinent questions in modern linguistic theory. The special contribution of this volume is the perspective on a variety of information-structurally related phenomena...
More DescriptionThis book analyzes the different patterns found across subsaharan Africa to express information structure. Based on languages from all four African language phyla, it documents the great diversity of linguistic means used to encode information-structural phenomena and is therefore highly relevant for some of the most pertinent questions in modern linguistic theory. The special contribution of this volume is the perspective on a variety of information-structurally related phenomena which go far beyond classical notions such as focus and topic. Detailed investigations are dedicated to so far less discussed focal subcategories, like focus on verbal operators or the thetic-categorical distinction. Finally, the information-structural configuration of unmarked, canonical sentence structures is recognized. The papers provide evidence that the formal means to encode information-structural categories range from means such as morphological markers or syntactic operations, famous in linguistics, to less well-known strategies, such as defocalization rather than focalization.