Open AccessFocus in Yorùbá: a semantic/pragmatic account
Author(s) -
Susie Jones
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.46.2006.340
Subject(s) - presupposition , focus (optics) , predicate (mathematical logic) , semantic property , yoruba , linguistics , congruence (geometry) , argument (complex analysis) , computer science , mathematics , philosophy , programming language , physics , biochemistry , chemistry , optics , geometry
Semantic and pragmatic properties of the Yorùbá focus construction have not been fully examined. This paper investigates presupposition, exhaustivity effects, and felicity conditions in some of its attested forms. Yorùbá focus does not trigger existence presuppositions, it does not have any obligatory exhaustivity effects, and argument focus and predicate focus behave differently with respect to question-answer congruence. These properties are compatible Déchaine’s analysis (2002) of Yorùbá focus as inverse predication, essentially a type of cleft.