TY - BOOK A1 - Duah, Reginald Akuoko A1 - Fominyam, Henry Z. A1 - Klose, Claudius A1 - Pfeil, Simone A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Valle, Daniel ED - Grubic, Mira ED - Bildhauer, Felix T1 - Mood, Exhaustivity & Focus Marking in non-European Languages N2 - This is the 19th — and final — issue of the working paper series Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) of the Collaborative Research Center 632. In this issue, we present cross-linguistic work on Mood, Exhaustivity, and Focus Marking, on African languages and American languages. T3 - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 - 19 Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-81200 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fominyam, Henry Zamchang T1 - Inverting the subject in Awing JF - Italian Journal of Linguistics N2 - This paper addresses the morpho-phonological, syntactic and pragmatic properties of postverbal subject constructions in Awing. Analogous to other inversion constructions in Bantu literature (Marten & Van der Wal 2014), Awing has a construction in which the subject occurs immediately after the verb, resulting in a subject or sentence focus interpretation. However in Awing, crucially, a VSX clause cannot host a subject marker, but must contain a certain le morpheme in sentence-initial position. Following Baker (2003) and Collins (2004), I argue that the subject marker triggers movement of the subject from Spec/vP, explaining why it is banned in VSX clauses. I further claim that although the subject is interpreted as focus, it is not in a lower focus phrase (Belletti 2004), but rather trapped in Spec/vP. Awing postverbal subject constructions also exhibit verb doubling: VSVO. I argue that verb doubling is due to Case requirement: In canonical SVO clauses the subject marker and the verb value the nominative and accusative Cases, respectively. In VSVO constructions, on the contrary, the verb values both nominative and accusative Cases, thus forcing syntax to spell out two copies of the same verb. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.26346/1120-2726-128 SN - 1120-2726 VL - 30 IS - 2 SP - 159 EP - 186 PB - Pacini CY - Pisa ER - TY - THES A1 - Fominyam, Henry Zamchang T1 - Aspects of Awing grammar and information structure N2 - This project describes the nominal, verbal and ‘truncation’ systems of Awing and explains the syntactic and semantic functions of the multifunctional l<-><-> (LE) morpheme in copular and wh-focused constructions. Awing is a Bantu Grassfields language spoken in the North West region of Cameroon. The work begins with morphological processes viz. deverbals, compounding, reduplication, borrowing and a thorough presentation of the pronominal system and takes on verbal categories viz. tense, aspect, mood, verbal extensions, negation, adverbs and triggers of a homorganic N(asal)-prefix that attaches to the verb and other verbal categories. Awing grammar also has a very unusual phenomenon whereby nouns and verbs take long and short forms. A chapter entitled truncation is dedicated to the phenomenon. It is observed that the truncation process does not apply to bare singular NPs, proper names and nouns derived via morphological processes. On the other hand, with the exception of the 1st person non-emphatic possessive determiner and the class 7 noun prefix, nouns generally take the truncated form with modifiers (i.e., articles, demonstratives and other possessives). It is concluded that nominal truncation depicts movement within the DP system (Abney 1987). Truncation of the verb occurs in three contexts: a mass/plurality conspiracy (or lattice structuring in terms of Link 1983) between the verb and its internal argument (i.e., direct object); a means to align (exhaustive) focus (in terms of Fery’s 2013), and a means to form polar questions. The second part of the work focuses on the role of the LE morpheme in copular and wh-focused clauses. Firstly, the syntax of the Awing copular clause is presented and it is shown that copular clauses in Awing have ‘subject-focus’ vs ‘topic-focus’ partitions and that the LE morpheme indirectly relates such functions. Semantically, it is shown that LE does not express contrast or exhaustivity in copular clauses. Turning to wh-constructions, the work adheres to Hamblin’s (1973) idea that the meaning of a question is the set of its possible answers and based on Rooth’s (1985) underspecified semantic notion of alternative focus, concludes that the LE morpheme is not a Focus Marker (FM) in Awing: LE does not generate or indicate the presence of alternatives (Krifka 2007); The LE morpheme can associate with wh-elements as a focus-sensitive operator with semantic import that operates on the focus alternatives by presupposing an exhaustive answer, among other notions. With focalized categories, the project further substantiates the claim in Fominyam & Šimík (2017), namely that exhaustivity is part of the semantics of the LE morpheme and not derived via contextual implicature, via a number of diagnostics. Hence, unlike in copular clauses, the LE morpheme with wh-focused categories is analysed as a morphological exponent of a functional head Exh corresponding to Horvath's (2010) EI (Exhaustive Identification). The work ends with the syntax of verb focus and negation and modifies the idea in Fominyam & Šimík (2017), namely that the focalized verb that associates with the exhaustive (LE) particle is a lower copy of the finite verb that has been moved to Agr. It is argued that the LE-focused verb ‘cluster’ is an instantiation of adjunction. The conclusion is that verb doubling with verb focus in Awing is neither a realization of two copies of one and the same verb (Fominyam and Šimík 2017), nor a result of a copy triggered by a focus marker (Aboh and Dyakonova 2009). Rather, the focalized copy is said to be merged directly as the complement of LE forming a type of adjoining cluster. N2 - Diese Arbeit beschreibt die nominalen und verbalen Systeme sowie die 'Verkürzungs-Systeme' in Awing und erklärt die syntaktischen und semantischen Funktionen des multifunktionalen Morphems l<-><-> (LE), sowohl in Kopula- als auch in wh-fokussierten Konstruktionen. Bei Awing handelt es sich um eine Sprache der Bantu Grassfields Familie und die im Nord-Westen Kameruns gesprochen wird. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden zuerst morphologische Prozesse wie Deverbale, Compounding, Reduplikation und Borrowing dargestellt. Darüber hinaus wird das pronominale System der Sprache und die verbalen Kategorien wie Tempus, Aspekt, Modus, verbale Extensionen, Negation und Adverbien ausführlich präsentiert. Weiterhin wird auf die Auslöser eines homorganischen N(asalen)-Präfixes eingegangen, das sich an das Verb und an andere verbale Kategorien bindet. Die Grammatik des Awing zeigt außerdem ein sehr ungewöhnliches Phänomen, nämlich die Existenz von sowohl langen als auch kurzen Formen von Substantiven und Verben. Diese Besonderheit wird im Kapitel 'truncation' thematisiert. Darüber hinaus haben Beobachtungen jedoch gezeigt, dass dieser Verkürzungsprozess nicht bei Singular-NPs, Namen und durch morphologische Prozesse abgeleitete Substantive angewendet werden kann. Im Kontrast dazu muss wiederum festgehalten werden, dass Substantive im Regelfall nur in ihrer verkürzten Form mit Modifizierern (z.B. Artikel, Demonstrative und andere Possessive) auftreten. Davon ausgenommen sind nur nicht-emphatische Possessiv-Determinierer in der ersten Person sowie das Nominal-Präfix der Klasse 7. Zusammenfassend wird dargelegt, dass nominale Verkürzung Bewegung innerhalb des DP-Systems anzeigt (Abney 1987). Die Verkürzung von Verben tritt in drei verschiedenen Kontexten auf: in einer Masse/Plural (‚lattice structure‘ Link 1983) Konspiration zwischen dem Verb und dem direkten Objekt, Fokus auszurichten (nach Féry 2013), und um polare Fragen zu bilden. Der zweite Teil dieser Arbeit konzentriert sich auf die Rolle der LE Morpheme in Kopula- und wh-fokussierten Sätzen. Zuerst wird die Syntax des Kopula-Satzes in Awing präsentiert und es wird herausgestellt, dass Kopula-Sätze in Awing zwischen 'Subjekt-Fokus' und 'thematischem Fokus' unterschieden werden. Außerdem wird dargelegt, dass das LE Morphem solche Funktionen indirekt miteinander in Verbindung bringt. Von semantischer Seite aus wird gezeigt, dass LE weder Kontrast noch Vollständigkeit in Kopula-Sätzen ausdrückt. Bezüglich wh-Konstruktionen hält die Arbeit an der Idee von Hamblin (1973) fest, dass die Bedeutung einer Frage die Menge ihrer möglichen Antworten ist. Außerdem basiert die Arbeit auf Rooth's (1985) unterspezifizierten semantischer Auffassung von alternativem Fokus. Es wird zusammenfassend herausgestellt, dass es sich bei dem LE Morphem nicht um eine Fokus-Markierung handelt: durch LE werden keine Alternativen generiert und auch deren Präsenz nicht angezeigt (Krifka 2007); das LE Morphem kann sich mit wh-Elementen zu einem Fokus-sensitiven Operator mit semantischer Bedeutung verbinden. Dieser wird auf die Fokus-Alternativen angewendet, indem, neben anderen Ansichten, eine vollständige Antwort presupponiert wird. Unter der Annahmen von mit Fokus markierten Kategorien konkretisiert dieses Projekt mithilfe verschiedenen Untersuchungsmethoden weiterhin die Aussage in Fominyam & Šimík (2017), nämlich, dass Vollständigkeit einen Teil der Semantik des LE Morphems darstellt und nicht durch kontextuelle Implikaturen abgeleitet werden kann. Anders als in Kopula-Sätzen wird das LE Morphem mit wh-fokussierten Kategorien daher als ein morphologischer Exponent eines funktionellen Kopfes Exh analysiert– in Übereinstimmung mit Horvath's (2010) EI (Exhaustive Identification). Die Arbeit endet mit der Struktur und Syntax von verbalem Fokus und Negation. Darüber hinaus wird die Idee von Fominyam & Šimík (2017) weiterhin modifiziert, indem herausgestellt wird, dass das mit Fokus markierte Verb, welches sich mit dem vollständigen (LE) Partikel verbindet, eine tieferliegende Kopie des nach Agr bewegten, finiten Verbes ist. Es wird argumentiert, dass das LE-fokussierte Verb-Cluster eine Form von Adjunktion ist. Die Schlussfolgerung ist, dass Verb-Verdopplung mit verbalem Fokus in Awing weder eine Realisierung zweier Kopien von ein und demselben Verb (Fominyam & Šimík 2017), noch das Ergebnis einer von einer Fokus-Markierung hervorgerufenen Kopie ist (Aboh and Dyakonova 2009). Viel eher wird angenommen, dass die Fokus-markierte Kopie direkt als das Komplement von LE generiert wird und dadurch eine Art Adjunktions-Cluster bildet. KW - Awing Grammar KW - Nominal morphology KW - Verbal morphology KW - Truncation KW - Copular clauses KW - Verb focus and negation KW - Information Structure KW - Awing Grammatik KW - Nominale Morphologie KW - Trunkation/Verkürzung KW - Kopula-Sätze KW - Verbaler Fokus und Negation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-518068 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fominyam, Henry A1 - Tran, Thuan T1 - Beware of ‘discourse markers’ JF - Of trees and birds. A Festschrift for Gisbert Fanselow KW - Festschrift KW - Informationsstruktur KW - Linguistik KW - Morphologie KW - Syntax KW - festschrift KW - information structure KW - linguistics KW - morphology KW - syntax Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-432524 SN - 978-3-86956-457-9 SP - 257 EP - 272 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fominyam, Henry A1 - Simik, Radek T1 - The morphosyntax of exhaustive focus JF - Natural language & linguistic theory N2 - We provide an analysis of focus and exhaustive focus in the Grassfields Bantu language Awing. We show that Awing provides an exceptionally clear window into the syntactic properties of exhaustive focus. Our analysis reveals that the Awing particle lə́ (le) realizes a left-peripheral head which, in terms of its syntactic position in the functional sequence, closely corresponds to the Foc(us) head in standard cartographic analyses (e.g., Rizzi 1997). Crucially, however, we show that le is only used if the focus it associates with receives a presuppositional exhaustive (cleft-like) interpretation. Other types of focus are not formally encoded in Awing. In order to reflect this semantic specification of le, we call its syntactic category Exh rather than Foc. Another point of difference from what one would consider a “standard” cartographic Foc head is that the focus associated with le is not realized in its specifier but rather within its complement. More particularly, we argue that le associates with the closest maximal projection it asymmetrically c-commands. The broader theoretical relevance of the present work is at least two-fold. First, our paper offers novel evidence in support of Horvath’s (2010) Strong Modularity Hypothesis for Discourse Features, according to which information structural notions such as focus cannot be represented in narrow syntax as formal features. We argue that the information structure-related movement operations that Awing exhibits can be accounted for by interface considerations, in the spirit of Reinhart (2006). Second, our data support the generality of the so-called closeness requirement on association with focus (Jacobs 1983), which dictates that a focus-sensitive particle be as close to its focus as possible (in terms of c-command). What is of special significance is the fact that Awing exhibits two different avenues to satisfying closeness. The standard one—previously described for German or Vietnamese and witnessed here for the Awing particle tśɔ’ə ‘only’—relies primarily on the flexible attachment of the focus-sensitive particle. The Awing particle le, in contrast, is syntactically rigid. For that reason, the satisfaction of closeness relies solely on the flexibility of other syntactic constituents. KW - Awing KW - Grassfields Bantu KW - Exhaustive focus KW - Focus encoding KW - Verbal morphosyntax KW - Interface of syntax and information structure Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-017-9363-2 SN - 0167-806X SN - 1573-0859 VL - 35 SP - 1027 EP - 1077 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fominyam, Henry Z. T1 - The Syntax of Focus and Interrogation in Awing BT - a Descriptive Approach JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - According to Aikhenvald (2007:5), descriptive linguistics or linguistic fieldwork “ideally involves observing the language as it is used, becoming a member of the community, and often being adopted into the kinship system”. Descriptive linguistics therefore differs from theoretical linguistics in that while the former seeks to describe natural languages as they are used, the latter, other than describing, attempts to give explanations on how or why language phenomena behave in certain ways. Thus, I will abstract away from any preconceived ideas on how sentences ought to be in Awing and take the linguist/reader through focus and interrogative constructions to get a feeling of how the Awing people interact verbally. KW - Awing KW - focus realization KW - question formation KW - descriptive grammar Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-83755 SN - 1614-4708 SN - 1866-4725 IS - 19 SP - 29 EP - 62 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Olsen, Susan A1 - Stiebels, Barbara A1 - Bierwisch, Manfred A1 - Zimmermann, Ilse A1 - Cavar, Damir A1 - Georgi, Doreen A1 - Bacskai-Atkari, Julia A1 - Alexiadou, Artemis A1 - Błaszczak, Joanna A1 - Müller, Gereon A1 - Šimík, Radek A1 - Meinunger, André A1 - Thiersch, Craig A1 - Arnhold, Anja A1 - Féry, Caroline A1 - Bayer, Josef A1 - Titov, Elena A1 - Fominyam, Henry A1 - Tran, Thuan A1 - Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina D. A1 - Schlesewsky, Matthias A1 - Zimmermann, Malte A1 - Häussler, Jana A1 - Mucha, Anne A1 - Schmidt, Andreas A1 - Weskott, Thomas A1 - Wierzba, Marta A1 - Stede, Manfred A1 - Skopeteas, Stavros A1 - Gafos, Adamantios I. A1 - Haider, Hubert A1 - Wunderlich, Dieter A1 - Staudacher, Peter A1 - Rauh, Gisa ED - Brown, Jessica M. M. ED - Schmidt, Andreas ED - Wierzba, Marta T1 - Of Trees and Birds BT - A Festschrift for Gisbert Fanselow N2 - Gisbert Fanselow’s work has been invaluable and inspiring to many ­researchers working on syntax, morphology, and information ­structure, both from a ­theoretical and from an experimental perspective. This ­volume comprises a collection of articles dedicated to Gisbert on the occasion of his 60th birthday, covering a range of topics from these areas and beyond. The contributions have in ­common that in a broad sense they have to do with language structures (and thus trees), and that in a more specific sense they have to do with birds. They thus cover two of Gisbert’s major interests in- and outside of the linguistic world (and ­perhaps even at the interface). KW - Festschrift KW - Linguistik KW - Syntax KW - Morphologie KW - Informationsstruktur KW - festschrift KW - linguistics KW - syntax KW - morphology KW - information structure Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-426542 SN - 978-3-86956-457-9 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER -