@article{HartmannZimmermann2009, author = {Hartmann, Katharina and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Morphological focus marking in G{\`u}r{\`u}nt{\`u}m (West Chadic)}, issn = {0024-3841}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2009.02.002}, year = {2009}, abstract = {The paper presents an in-depth study of focus marking in Guruntum, a West Chadic language spoken in Bauchi State in Nigeria. Focus in Guruntum is marked morphologically by means of a focus marker a, which typically precedes the focused constituent. Even though the morphological focus-marking system of Guruntum allows for a lot of fine-grained distinctions in information structure (IS), the language is not entirely free of focus ambiguities that are the result of conflicting IS- and syntactic requirements governing the placement of focus markers. We show that morphological focus marking with a applies across different types of focus, such as new-information, contrastive, selective and corrective focus, and that a does not have a second function as a perfective marker, as is assumed in the literature. In contrast, we argue that sentence-final occurrences of a in perfective sentences are markers of sentential focus and have additional functions at the level of discourse structure.}, language = {en} } @article{HartmannZimmermann2012, author = {Hartmann, Katharina and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Focus marking in Bura - semantic uniformity matches syntactic heterogeneity}, series = {Natural language \& linguistic theory}, volume = {30}, journal = {Natural language \& linguistic theory}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0167-806X}, doi = {10.1007/s11049-012-9174-4}, pages = {1061 -- 1108}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The present article introduces a theory of (morpho-)syntactic focus marking on nominal categories in Bura, a Central Chadic SVO language spoken in the northeast of Nigeria. Our central claim is that the particle an plays a crucial role in the marking of subject and non-subject focus. We put forward a uniform analysis of an as a focus copula that selects for syntactic predicates of type < e,t > and a focused constituent of type < e >. This uniform semantic representation is transparently mapped onto different syntactic structures: In a clause with a focused subject, the focus copula appears between the subject in SpecTP and the predicative VP. On the other hand, syntactically focused non-subjects are fronted and appear in a bi-clausal cleft structure that contains the focus copula and a relative cleft-remnant. The non-uniform analysis of focus marking is further supported by the structure of predicative constructions, in which the focus copula separates the focused subject and the adjectival or nominal predicate. It is also shown that alternative unified analyses fail to account for the full range of Bura data. The latter part of the article provides an analysis of the Bura cleft construction. Based on syntactic and semantic evidence, we come to the conclusion that the clefted constituent is base-generated in its initial surface position, and that an empty operator moves within the relative clause. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the potential conceptual reasons behind the observed subject/non-subject asymmetry in Bura.}, language = {en} } @article{HartmannZimmermann2004, author = {Hartmann, Katharina and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Focus strategies in chadic}, series = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, journal = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632}, number = {1}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8423}, pages = {207 -- 243}, year = {2004}, abstract = {We argue that the standard focus theories reach their limits when confronted with the focus systems of the Chadic languages. The backbone of the standard focus theories consists of two assumptions, both called into question by the languages under consideration. Firstly, it is standardly assumed that focus is generally marked by stress. The Chadic languages, however, exhibit a variety of different devices for focus marking. Secondly, it is assumed that focus is always marked. In Tangale, at least, focus is not marked consistently on all types of constituents. The paper offers two possible solutions to this dilemma.}, language = {en} } @article{HartmannJacobZimmermann2008, author = {Hartmann, Katharina and Jacob, Peggy and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Focus asymmetries in Bura}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19381}, year = {2008}, abstract = {(Chadic), which exhibits a number of asymmetries: Grammatical focus marking is obligatory only with focused subjects, where focus is marked by the particle {\´a}n following the subject. Focused subjects remain in situ and the complement of {\´a}n is a regular VP. With nonsubject foci, {\´a}n appears in a cleft-structure between the fronted focus constituent and a relative clause. We present a semantically unified analysis of focus marking in Bura that treats the particle as a focusmarking copula in T that takes a property-denoting expression (the background) and an individual-denoting expression (the focus) as arguments. The article also investigates the realization of predicate and polarity focus, which are almost never marked. The upshot of the discussion is that Bura shares many characteristic traits of focus marking with other Chadic languages, but it crucially differs in exhibiting a structural difference in the marking of focus on subjects and non-subject constituents.}, language = {en} } @article{Hartmann2007, author = {Hartmann, Katharina}, title = {Focus and Tone}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19729}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Tone is a distinctive feature of the lexemes in tone languages. The information-structural category focus is usually marked by syntactic and morphological means in these languages, but sometimes also by intonation strategies. In intonation languages, focus is marked by pitch movements, which are also perceived as tone. The present article discusses prosodic focus marking in these two language types.}, language = {en} } @article{FeryHartmann2005, author = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Hartmann, Katharina}, title = {The Focus and prosodic structure of German Gapping and right Node Raising}, year = {2005}, language = {en} } @article{FiedlerHartmannReinekeetal.2010, author = {Fiedler, Ines and Hartmann, Katharina and Reineke, Brigitte and Schwarz, Anne and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Subject focus in West African languages}, isbn = {978-0-19-957095-9}, year = {2010}, language = {en} } @article{ChiarcosFiedlerGrubicetal.2011, author = {Chiarcos, Christian and Fiedler, Ines and Grubic, Mira and Hartmann, Katharina and Ritz, Julia and Schwarz, Anne and Zeldes, Amir and Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Information structure in African languages corpora and tools}, series = {Language resources and evaluation}, volume = {45}, journal = {Language resources and evaluation}, number = {3}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1574-020X}, doi = {10.1007/s10579-011-9153-0}, pages = {361 -- 374}, year = {2011}, abstract = {In this paper, we describe tools and resources for the study of African languages developed at the Collaborative Research Centre 632 "Information Structure". These include deeply annotated data collections of 25 sub-Saharan languages that are described together with their annotation scheme, as well as the corpus tool ANNIS, which provides unified access to a broad variety of annotations created with a range of different tools. With the application of ANNIS to several African data collections, we illustrate its suitability for the purpose of language documentation, distributed access, and the creation of data archives.}, language = {en} }