Aspects of Awing Grammar and Information

404 Pages·2021·5.314 MB·English

by  Henry Zamchang Fominyam

Aspects of Awing Grammar and Information
Structure

Henry Zamchang Fominyam

Dissertation, eingereicht bei der humanwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der
Universität Potsdam (2021)
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Published online on the
Publication Server of the University of Potsdam:
https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-51806
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-518068
This work is dedicated to my kids: Treasured-Gift, Xenia and Talia, Fominyam.
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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to all those who have stood by me, acting as stepping stones to see me
reach this stage. It would be a sin to think that I did it on my own.
I wish to thank in particular my supervisor Gisbert Fanselow. Gisbert has been very
understanding with my struggles and has provided me with all the necessary academic and
moral support. It has really been a blessing working with a fatherly person like Gisbert, who
has not only been concerned with the progress of this work but has also provided my family
and me the necessary support and counsel for an easy integration. I have been also very
fortunate to have Malte Zimmermann around. Malte’s in-depth understanding of African
languages and his willingness to discuss whenever needed have been extremely beneficial to
this endeavor. I would also like to thank Katharina Hartmann and Natalie Boll-Avetisyan for
accepting to be part of the examination board. I am especially grateful to Jenneke van der Wal
for agreeing to be an external reviewer.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank my former teachers in the University of Yaoundé I.
Special gratitude goes to: Prof. Edmond Biloa (my MA supervisor); Prof. Florence Tabe
Oben, who did not only teach me exciting syntactic derivations but also introduced me in the
teaching field; Prof. Philipp Ngessimo Mutaka, my phonology teacher and late Prof. Pius
Ngwa Tamanji who was not only concerned in what we did in class but took upon himself the
responsibility that we should become men and women of value in the society. Unfortunately
the cold arms of death snatched him from us in December 2014. Dear Pius, your work and
counsel remain and will be passed on through us.
I have also benefited from the help of colleagues here in the University of Potsdam and other
researchers who were very kind to read and provide me with valuable feedback on various
portions of this work. I will like to use this medium to thank (in alphabetical order): Doreen
Georgi, Fatima Hamlaoui, Joseph DeVaugh-Geiss, Johannes Mursell, Jenneke van der Wal,
Katharina Hartmann, Larry Hyman, Marta Wierzba, Mary Amaechi, Mira Grubic, Radek
Šimík and Thuan Tran. Special thanks also goes to the secretary of the department Ines Mauer
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whose kindness and willingness to repeat instructions have been very helpful
administratively.
This is also an opportunity to thank the organizers of the African Linguistic Schools (ALS)
for the wonderful forum that the school has been creating to African students. I had the
privilege to participate in the 2013 session at Lead City University in Ibadan, Nigeria, where I
met Prof. Enoch Aboh who did not only encourage my research proposal but followed it up to
see that I secure a position to pursue the ideas in Europe.
I would love to appreciate my darling wife Melvis Fominyam for believing in me and being
the immediate pillar on which I can lean on. Since I met Melvis during our first undergraduate
years in the University of Yaoundé I, she has been the source of my encouragement and has
borne all my weaknesses; thank you my love. And to my awesome mother Frida Aghetse, nda
mbo se npool. You have been there for me from the moment I saw the light of day till this
day and your knees bear the marks of my spiritual stability. God has used you tremendously
to make this happen. I wish my darling father Zamchang Dickson would have been here with
us. A big thanks to my brothers, Chefor Ernest, Woneshi Charles, Mondi Henry, and all the
Zamchangs.
This work would not have been possible without the generous financial supports from DFG
and DAAD. It was during a one year funding program from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft that the work was conceived. I then got a full Ph.D. funding grant
from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst from October 2016.

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Contents

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Overview ............................................................................................................ 1
1.1.1 Why aspects of Awing grammar? ......................................................... 2
1.1.2 Why Information Structure (IS) ............................................................ 2
1.1.2.1 The human language. ............................................................ 3
1.1.2.2 Where does IS fit in? ............................................................. 7
1.2 Organisation of the thesis ................................................................................... 9
1.3 State of research ............................................................................................... 12
1.4 The data ............................................................................................................ 13
1.5 The language and people .................................................................................. 13
1.6 Linguistic classification .................................................................................... 14
1.7 Phonology ......................................................................................................... 15
2 The nominal system .................................................................................................. 19
2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 19
2.2 Derivational morphology ................................................................................. 23
2.2.1 Deverbals ............................................................................................. 23
2.2.1.1 The a- prefix ....................................................................... 23
2.2.1.2 The n- prefix ...................................................................... 24
2.2.1.3 The n-…-n Circumfix ..................................................... 25
2.2.1.4 The N-prefix ........................................................................ 26
2.2.1.5 The t-…-n circumfix ........................................................ 26
2.2.1.6 Nouns form with the a-, - and N- prefixes......................... 28
2.2.1.7 Deverbals via tonal modification ........................................ 29
2.3 Other derivational processes ............................................................................. 30
2.3.1 Nouns derived from adjectives ............................................................. 31
3.3.2 Compounding ....................................................................................... 32
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3.3.3 Augmentative and diminutive prefixes ................................................ 33
3.3.4 Reduplication ....................................................................................... 36
3.3.5 Loan words ........................................................................................... 37
2.4 The pronominal system ..................................................................................... 38
2.4.1 Absolute human pronouns .................................................................... 38
3.4.2 Coordinating human pronouns ............................................................. 43
3.4.3 Absolute non-human pronouns ............................................................ 46
3.4.4 Possessive pronouns and determiners .................................................. 46
3.4.5 Demonstrative pronouns and determiners ............................................ 49
2.5 Towards the Awing noun phrase head-directionality........................................ 50
2.5.1 The noun and the associative noun phrase with specific modifiers ..... 50
3.5.2 Combining different nominal modifiers ............................................... 59
2.6 Summary ........................................................................................................... 67
3 Verb morphology and clause structure .................................................................. 69
3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 69
3.2 The infinitive verb ............................................................................................ 71
3.3 Subject markers ................................................................................................ 73
3.4 Tense ................................................................................................................ 77
3.4.1 A complex tense clause ....................................................................... 80
3.5 Aspect ............................................................................................................... 86
3.5.1 Progressive /t/ .................................................................................... 88
3.5.2 Habitual /za/ ...................................................................................... 88
3.5.3 Iterative /p/ ......................................................................................... 89
3.6 Mood ................................................................................................................ 89
3.6.1 The imperative mood .......................................................................... 90
3.6.2 The subjunctive/conditional (COND) mood /gháts/ ........................ 90
3.6.3 The potential (POT) mood /tmb’/ .................................................... 90
3.6.4 The certainty (CERT) mood /p/ ......................................................... 91
3.7 The N- Prefix .................................................................................................... 93
3.7.1 Exceptions with the N-prefixation ...................................................... 99
3.8 Verbal extensions ........................................................................................... 106
3.8.1 The causative (CAUS) suffix: -k ..................................................... 107
3.8.2 The spontaneous (SPONT) suffix: -k .............................................. 107
3.8.3 The reciprocal (REC) suffix: -n ....................................................... 108
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3.8.4 The persuasive (PERS) suffix: -n .................................................... 108
3.8.5 The reversal (REV) suffix: -k .......................................................... 109
3.8.6 The distributive (DIST) suffix: -t .................................................... 110
3.8.7 The diminutive (DIM) suffix: -t ...................................................... 111
3.8.8 The frequent (FREQ) suffix: -t ........................................................ 111
3.9 Negation ......................................................................................................... 112
3.9.1 Other negative forms ......................................................................... 117
3.9.2 Negative polarity items ..................................................................... 124
3.10 Adverbial phrases ......................................................................................... 125
3.11 Summary ...................................................................................................... 128
4 Truncation in Awing .............................................................................................. 129
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 129
4.1.1 Introducing the phenomenon ............................................................ 129
4.2 Truncation in Awing ...................................................................................... 133
4.3 Nominal truncation ......................................................................................... 134
4.4 Verbal truncation ............................................................................................ 152
4.4.1 The conspiracy between the verb and the direct object .................... 153
4.4.2 Truncation as a focus alignment mechanism .................................... 160
4.4.2.1 Truncation and the ‘disjoint conjoint’ phenomenon .......... 164
4.4.3 Truncation as a means to form questions .......................................... 166
4.4.3.1 Using intonation and/or truncation to form-
interrogatives ..................................................................... 167
4.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 170
5 The LE morpheme ................................................................................................. 172
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 172
5.2 The copular clause in Awing .......................................................................... 176
5.2.1 Morpho-syntactic differences between LE and p in-
copular clauses ................................................................................... 182
5.2.2 The LE morpheme and the post-copular ‘focus’ ................................ 190
5.3 The topic-focus partitioned construction ........................................................ 199
5.3.1 A broader picture on the topic-focus partition .................................. 201
5.4 The syntax of copular clauses and the topic-focus partitioned-
constructions ................................................................................................... 204
5.5 Summary ........................................................................................................ 213
6 Wh-Constructions .................................................................................................. 215
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6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 215
6.2 Syntactic properties of wh-constructions ....................................................... 216
6.2.1 General properties of non-subject wh-questions ................................ 216
6.2.1.1 Non-subject wh-fronting asymmetry in Awing ................... 218
6.2.2 Special properties of subject wh-questions ........................................ 221
6.3.3 Coordinating wh-phrases .................................................................... 222
6.2.4 Embedding wh-phrases ...................................................................... 225
6.2.5 Non-interrogative use of wh-phrases? ................................................ 229
6.2.6 Multiple wh-questions ........................................................................ 232
6.3.7 Negating content questions ................................................................ 234
6.2.8 Summarizing the morpho-syntactic properties of -
wh-constructions ................................................................................ 237
6.3 The semantic component of the LE morpheme with wh-phrases .................. 238
6.3.1 The difference between LE and ‘only’ ................................................ 239
6.3.2 LE with wh-phrases ............................................................................. 244
6.4 Why the SM is phonetically null with in-situ wh-subject in Awing .............. 257
6.5 Engaging the syntax of wh-constructions in Awing ...................................... 262
6.5.1 A note on the position of the LE morpheme ...................................... 262
6.5.2 Revisiting the SM and the subject position in Awing ........................ 264
6.5.3 Consequences of LE’s fixed position in multiple wh-question .......... 270
6.6 The syntax of ex-situ wh-phrases ................................................................... 276
6.6.1 Syntactic constraints targeting movement dependencies ................... 276
6.6.2 Semantic effects targeting movement dependencies .......................... 285
6.6.3 Phonological and prosodic effects targeting movement-
dependencies ...................................................................................... 289
6.7 Summary ........................................................................................................ 295
7 Focalization ............................................................................................................. 297
7.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 297
7.2 New information focus; the unmarked focus ................................................ 298
7.3 Morphological focus ‘marking’; the data ....................................................... 300
7.4 Focus interpretation with the LE morpheme .................................................. 302
7.4.1 ‘Contrast’ ............................................................................................ 303
7.4.1.1 Corrective focus .................................................................. 304
7.4.1.2 Alternative questions; selective focus ................................. 305
7.4.2 Exhaustivity ........................................................................................ 307
7.4.2.1 Exhaustivity is incompatible with indefinite and universal-
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