The Grammar of Focus in Sandawe
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THE UNIVERSITY OF READING The grammar of focus in Sandawe Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Helen Catherine Eaton June 2002 2 Abstract The linguistic realisation of focus can be syntactic, morphological and phonological. Those languages which display all three types of focus marking are of particular current theoretical interest for research into the nature of interface levels in generative grammar. One such language is Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken in Tanzania. The research presented in this thesis is concerned with the limitations on sentence form grammaticality in Sandawe and the relationship between sentence form and focus. Sentence form grammaticality was investigated by means of grammaticality judgment tasks which were undertaken with a native speaker of Sandawe. Data on the relationship between sentence form and focus was collected using sentence anagram tasks, a picture description task and a translation task. The results of the data elicitation reveal that great variation in sentence form is possible in Sandawe. The linguistic levels involved in this variation, and the limitations on it, differ according to sentence type. In realis sentences, the variation and limitations are syntactic and morphological, whereas in irrealis sentences, they are syntactic and phonological. Sentence form in both the realis and the irrealis exhibits a relationship with focus. Underneath the surface differences between the two sentence types, a striking parallelism in this relationship is evident. A minimalist PF scrambling account (Kidwai, 1999, 2000) is adopted to handle the Sandawe focusing phenomena. It is argued that the immediately preverbal linear focus position in Sandawe is only activated by argument movement. Apparently arbitrary grammatical restrictions are explained as a reflex of this process. The different focusing mechanisms in the language are analysed as motivated by the requirements of the [PF[+Interpretable]] feature [+focus], which may be licensed by PF movement or in Morphology or Phonology. Focusing in Sandawe is therefore shown to both explain grammaticality restrictions and be motivated by core grammatical principles. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 Tables 8 Figures 11 Acknowledgments 12 Author’s declaration 13 Abbreviations and notational conventions 14 1. THE RESEARCH CONTEXT OF THE GRAMMAR OF FOCUS 16 1.1 Defining focus 16 1.1.1 Historical overview 16 1.1.2 Focus types 19 1.1.2.1 Constituents and focus 19 1.1.2.2. Identification, exhaustiveness and contrastiveness 21 1.2 The place of focus in grammar 24 1.3 Current paradigms of research 27 1.3.1 Grammaticalisation 27 1.3.2 Functionalism 29 1.3.3 Generative grammar 30 1.3.4 Focus in use 31 1.4 Implications for the present study 32 1.5 The place of the thesis in the current research context 33 2. LINGUISTIC THEORIES AND THE GRAMMAR OF FOCUS 35 2.1 Current theoretical frameworks 35 2.1.1 Government and Binding Theory 35 2.1.2 Optimality Theory 37 2.1.3 The Minimalist Program 38 2.2 The grammar of focus 40 2.2.1 Syntax 40 2.2.2 Morphology 44 2.2.3 Phonology 45 2.3 The grammar of focus in the current frameworks 46 2.3.1 Government and Binding Theory 47 2.3.1.1 Focus criterion 47 4 2.3.1.2 Feature parameterisation 50 2.3.2 Optimality Theory 53 2.3.3 The Minimalist Program 56 2.3.3.1 PF scrambling 56 2.3.3.2 Prosodically motivated movement 60 2.4 The choice of framework for the current research 63 3. THE SANDAWE LANGUAGE 65 3.1 Background to the Sandawe language 65 3.1.1 Geographical context 65 3.1.2 Classification 68 3.1.3 Phonological and grammatical preliminaries 70 3.1.3.1 Phonological transcription 70 3.1.3.2 Declaratives 71 3.1.3.3 Interrogatives 76 3.1.3.4 Multiple verb constructions 79 3.1.3.5 Head-final order 80 3.2 Previous research on Sandawe 82 3.2.1 Phonetics and phonology 82 3.2.2 Constituent order and focus 83 3.2.3 Inflection and focus 92 3.3 The direction of research on Sandawe 100 4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY 102 4.1 Research questions 102 4.1.1 Grammaticality 102 4.1.2 Focus 105 4.2 Methodology 106 4.2.1 Rationale for the data elicitation techniques chosen 106 4.2.2 Realis grammaticality judgment task 110 4.2.2.1 Materials 110 4.2.2.2 Procedure 112 4.2.3 Irrealis grammaticality judgment task 113 4.2.3.1 Materials 113 4.2.3.2. Procedure 114 4.2.4 Realis sentence anagram task 115 4.2.4.1 Materials 115 4.2.4.2 Procedure 118 4.2.5 Irrealis sentence anagram task 120 4.2.5.1 Materials 120 4.2.5.2 Procedure 122 4.2.6 Swahili task 123 4.2.6.1 Materials 124 4.2.6.2 Procedure 125 4.2.7 Focus and translation task 125 4.2.7.1 Materials 125 5 4.2.7.2 Procedure 127 4.3 Choice of informants 127 5. RESULTS OF DATA ELICITATION 128 5.1 Realis grammaticality judgment task 128 5.1.1 Constituent order and inflection 128 5.1.2 Constituent-specific restrictions on grammaticality 132 5.1.2.1 Multiple verb constructions 132 5.1.2.2 Disjuncts 134 5.1.2.3 Complex NPs 134 5.2 Irrealis grammaticality judgment task 136 5.2.1 Constituent order and verb tone pattern 136 5.2.2 Marginal grammaticality 138 5.3 Realis sentence anagram task 141 5.3.1 Constituent order 141 5.3.1.1 Dominant constituent order 141 5.3.1.2 Focus and non-SOV constituent orders 142 5.3.1.3 Question form and constituent order 146 5.3.1.4 Focus and the position of adjuncts and disjuncts 147 5.3.2 Inflection 150 5.3.2.1 Focus and inflection 150 5.3.2.2 Single- vs. multiple-focused verbs and inflection 151 5.3.2.3 Question form and inflection 153 5.4 Irrealis sentence anagram task 156 5.4.1 Constituent order 157 5.4.1.1 Dominant constituent order 157 5.4.1.2 Focus and non-SOV constituent orders 159 5.4.1.3 Focus and the position of adjuncts 161 5.4.2 Verb tone pattern 163 5.5 Swahili task 165 5.5.1 Constituent order 165 5.5.2 Inflection 169 5.6 Focus and translation task 171 5.6.1 Constituent order 172 5.6.1.1 Realis 172 5.6.1.2 Irrealis 174 5.6.2 Inflection (realis) 176 5.6.3 Verb tone pattern (irrealis) 177 5.6.4 Informant comparison 178 5.7 Summary 179 6. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 181 6.1 The major findings of the research 181 6 6.1.1 The parallelism of the realis and the irrealis 181 6.1.2 The relevance of the type and number of focused constituents 187 6.1.3 The secondary role of constituent order 194 6.1.4 The place of focus in grammar 197 6.1.5 Summary of major findings 199 6.2 A typological approach to focus in Sandawe 200 6.2.1 Syntax 201 6.2.2 Morphology 202 6.2.3 Tone 204 6.3 Summary 205 7. CLAUSE STRUCTURE AND FOCUSING 208 7.1 Sandawe clause structure 208 7.2 Comparing approaches to Sandawe focusing 217 7.2.1 The focus criterion and feature parameterisation approaches 217 7.2.2 An Optimality Theory approach 219 7.2.3 A prosodically motivated movement approach 222 7.3 A PF scrambling analysis of Sandawe focusing 225 7.3.1 Syntactic focusing 225 7.3.2 Morphological focusing 232 7.3.3 Phonological focusing 235 7.4 Summary 237 8. CONCLUSION 238 8.1 The adequacy of the proposed account of Sandawe focus 238 8.1.1 Formal linguistic realisation of focus 239 8.1.1.1 Syntax in the realis and irrealis 239 8.1.1.2 Morphology in the realis 240 8.1.1.3 Phonology in the irrealis. 240 8.1.1.4 Similarities and differences of the realis and irrealis 241 8.1.1.5 Relationship between focus realisation and core grammar 242 8.1.2 Optionality in focus realisation 243 8.1.2.1 Syntax in the realis and the irrealis 243 8.1.2.2 Morphology in the realis 244 8.1.2.3 Phonology in the irrealis 245 8.2 Suggestions for further research 246 8.3 Summary 249 9. REFERENCES 251 10. APPENDICES 260 Appendix A: Realis target sentences 260 7 Appendix B: Irrealis target sentences 263 Appendix C: Realis grammaticality judgments 265 Appendix D: Irrealis grammaticality judgments 274 Appendix E: Realis sentence anagram task data 276 Appendix F: Irrealis sentence anagram task data 283 Appendix G: Swahili task data 289 Appendix H: Focus and translation task data 293 8 Tables Table 3.1 Pulmonic and glottalic consonants 70 Table 3.2 Velaric consonants 71 Table 3.3 Vowels 71 Table 3.4 Pgn morpheme series in Sandawe 72 Table 3.5 Grammatical combinations of constituent order and inflection, from Kagaya (1990: 2, 4) 93 Table 3.6 Ungrammatical combinations rejected by restriction (1) 95 Table 3.7 Ungrammatical combinations rejected by restriction (2) 96 Table 3.8 Ungrammatical combinations rejected by restriction (3) 96 Table 4.1 Logically possible inflection patterns for a realis sentence with a subject and a verb 104 Table 4.2 Logically possible inflection patterns for an irrealis sentence with a subject and a verb 104 Table 4.3 Content of target sentences for the realis sentence anagram task 112 Table 4.4 Content of target sentences for the irrealis sentence anagram task 113 Table 5.1 Grammaticality of constituent order 129 Table 5.2 Logically possible inflection patterns for a realis sentence with three major constituents 130 Table 5.3 Grammatical combinations of constituent order and inflection pattern for S, O, V sentences 130 Table 5.4 Ungrammatical combinations rejected by restriction (1) 131 Table 5.5 Ungrammatical combinations rejected by restriction (2) 131 Table 5.6 Combinations for target sentence E and F, incorrectly rejected by the second restriction 132 Table 5.7 Grammaticality of constituent order 137 Table 5.8 Grammaticality of constituent order and verb tone pattern combinations 138 Table 5.9 Grammaticality of constituent order in V H tokens 139 Table 5.10 Relative order of S,V 142 Table 5.11 Relative order of S,O,V