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Subject and Topic: Evidence From Kenyang 1
Author(s) -
Green Melanie,
Tabe Florence A. E.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.2012.01312.x
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , morpheme , linguistics , focus (optics) , agreement
Abstract The Cameroonian language Kenyang provides evidence for the view that subjects evolve from topics, and subject agreement morphemes from pronominal subjects. Kenyang has fully grammaticalised clause‐internal subjects, and a pre‐verbal subject marker that licenses null subjects, as well as marking aspect. Clause‐external topics may be involved in subject‐like processes such as reflexivisation or control of a null embedded subject, but only through a chain of reference mediated by a co‐referential subject. A comparison of topic and clause‐initial contrastive focus enables a full characterisation of topic by revealing systematic structural differences. A broadly minimalist analysis provides a straightforward model of the findings.