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SUMMARY:Disentangling focus constructions in Luganda - Jenneke van der Wal
 \, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20150205T170000Z
DTEND:20150205T183000Z
UID:TALK56046@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jamie Douglas
DESCRIPTION:In recent fieldwork in Uganda\,  we found that the Bantu langu
 age Luganda displays not just one\, but three different morphosyntactic st
 rategies to express focus. First\, there is a positional effect for wh que
 stions and corresponding answers to appear Immediately After the Verb\, as
  is familiar from other Bantu languages (Watters 1979\, Buell 2006\, van d
 er Wal 2009). Second\, constituents can be placed in a preverbal position 
 with an agreeing focus morpheme (gye) preceding the verb\, as in (1). Thir
 d\, nouns can appear with or without an initial vowel\, where the absence 
 of this vowel indicates focus (2).\n\n(1)	M-mése	o-mu-sóta	gy-e	gw-a-kut
 tê.\n\n	9PX-rat	3A-3PX-snake	9-FOC	3SM-PAST-catch.PERF\n\n	‘It’s a ra
 t that the snake caught.’\n\n(2)	Y-a-yéra	o-lú-ggya	/ lú-ggyâ.\n\n	1
 SM-PAST-sweep	11A-11PX-yard	/ 11PX-yard\n\n	‘She swept the yard / the YA
 RD.’\n\nThis perhaps surprising abundance of strategies to encode focus 
 triggers the following initial research questions: 1) what is the differen
 ce in semantic/pragmatic interpretation of each strategy? do they encode t
 hey same type of focus? 2) how can we tell? what are the diagnostics for f
 ocus?\n	In this talk I apply various tests for different types of focus\, 
 in order to support an analysis where the preverbal focus construction exp
 resses identificational focus\, and the absence of the initial vowel is sh
 own to express exclusive focus (refining Hyman & Katamba 1993). This not o
 nly provides us with a more detailed analysis of the focus constructions i
 n Luganda\, but also explains the interaction between the different strate
 gies\, and gives insights into the interface between morphosyntax and info
 rmation structure.\n\nThis research was conducted in a small project funde
 d by the Alborada Fund and carried out together with Saudah Namyalo.\n
LOCATION:Lecture Block\, Room 5\, Sidgwick Site
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