Encoding Focus in Verbal Morphology : Predication Focus and the "Kanuri Focus Shift"

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Löhr, Doris ; Wolff, H. Ekkehard:
Encoding Focus in Verbal Morphology : Predication Focus and the "Kanuri Focus Shift".
In: Fiedler, Ines ; Schwarz, Anne (Hrsg.): Papers on Information Structure in African Languages. - Berlin : ZAS , 2006 . - S. 185-209 . - (ZAS Papers in Linguistics ; 46 )

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Abstract

Focus on verbal operators such as aspect or tense (“predication focus”, lucidly described by Hyman & Watters (1984) under the label “auxiliary focus”) has been
noticed to exist in African languages of Afroasiatic and Niger-Congo affiliation, but not so far in Saharan. The Saharan language Kanuri is assumed to have
substantially reorganized its TAM system, particularly in the perfective aspect domain (Cyffer [2006] dates major changes between the years 1820 and 1900).
The paper discusses, for the first time in Kanuri scholarship, the existence of a neat subsystem of predication focus marking by suffix in the perfective aspect
which is made up of a total of six conjugational paradigms that uniformly encode predication focus by suffix {-ò}. Kanuri dialects differ in strategies and scope of focus marking encoded in verb morphology. In the light of data from the Yerwa (Nigeria) and Manga (Niger) dialects the paper discusses some “anomalies” with
regard to general focus theory which we account for by describing the “Kanuri Focus Shift” as a diachronic process which is responsible for leftward displacement of scope of focus.