Subject and non-subject <i>ex-situ</i> focus in Dagbani

Abstract

This paper offers a description and account of the patterns of ex-situ focus in Dagbani. We show that there are two syntactic strategies for creating ex-situ focus in the language, one involving A'-movement to the left periphery, and the second involving base generation in the left periphery combined with coreference to a resumptive pronoun. Furthermore, we argue that subjects are difficult to move from Spec,TP to Spec,CP in the left-periphery because of anti-locality, which creates a tension when trying to focus subjects, which are required to derivationally fill the specifier of both positions. We further show that what looks to be a two-way distinction between the behaviour of subjects and non-subjects in the language is in fact a three-way distinction between subjects that are focussed to a local left-periphery, subjects that are focussed to a non-local left-periphery, and non-subjects. These distinctions arise due to there being two methods for Dagbani to resolve the antilocality problem of subject movement, and so local subjects solve the problem differently to non-local subjects.

The syntax of weak and strong pronouns in Dagbani and Kusaal

“…This explains why it is argued in the literature that the fronted constituent is invariably followed by an overt focus marker, ń after fronted subjects, and kà after non‐subjects for Dagbani and Kusaal (cf. Issah & Smith 2020 for an analysis of this asymmetry). Based on this syntactic account proposed for the derivation of term focus constructions and wh ‐questions, and following proposal made in Issah (2019) and Hartmann and Issah (2018), the assumed structure for the two is as in (6).…”

“…In the former, it is argued that the coding involves an extraction of the focused element from the base position to the left periphery of the clause structure. This is followed by the introduction of the particles kà or ń which must be c‐commanded by the extracted element (Issah 2008, 2012, 2019; Hudu 2012; Issah & Smith 2020). Similarly, previous research on Kusaal ex‐situ focus constructions have also demonstrated the obligatory use of the focus particle kà after the extraction of focused constituents to the left periphery (Abubakari 2011, 2018, 2019aa, 2019bb; Musah 2018).…”

“…Similarly, previous research on Kusaal ex‐situ focus constructions have also demonstrated the obligatory use of the focus particle kà after the extraction of focused constituents to the left periphery (Abubakari 2011, 2018, 2019aa, 2019bb; Musah 2018). It is important to add that, whereas Issah (2012, 2013) and Hudu (2012) argue that the distribution of the focus heads is regulated by the syntactic category of the extracted/focused elements, giving rise to the so‐called subject/non‐subject asymmetry, Issah and Smith (2020) and Issah (2019) demonstrate that this proposal does not account for full data and rather propose that the distribution is attributable to clausehood 4. Although full DPs, adjuncts and even verbs (in Kusaal but not Dagbani) can be fronted for the purpose of coding contrastive focus, only emphatic pronouns can occur in the clausal left periphery as weak pronouns are disallowed.…”

Anti-locality and subject extraction

“…This particular anti-locality constraint has been adopted in a range of recent work, including Bošković (2016), Douglas (2016;, Amaechi & Georgi (2019), Deal (2019), Issah & Smith (2020), and Branan (2020). In particular, although originally formulated in Erlewine (2014;2016) as a constraint on Ā-movement, Deal (2019) has argued that the constraint holds of A-movement as well and so I give the "generalized" formulation here.…”