Abubakari, Hasiyatu: Information Structure and the Lexical-Functional Grammar Framework
This paper explores a formal analysis of Information Structure in Kusaal. It is observed that the i-structure is inadequately resourced to account for the various subcategories of discourse notions; more specifically the difference between information focus and contrastive focus in Kusaal and by extension some African languages. These two subtypes of focus are observed to have identical i-structures, resulting in ambiguity, although the c-structures may be different especially with languages where overt morphological particles play important roles in expressing the discourse statuses of constituents. To address the issue, an additional feature, DTYPE, with a value that subcategories subtypes of focus and topic notions is introduced in the i-structure. Another feature referred to as DFORM shows values that may either be morphologically or phonologically realised on an individual language basis.
December 22, 2022 |
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