Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

On the left periphery and (non-)subject positions in Mabia languages

Vortragende(r) Daniel Aremu
Institution(en) Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Datum 15.11.2024, 14:00 - 15:30 Uhr
Uhrzeit 14:00 Uhr
Ort ZAS, Pariser Str. 1, 10719 Berlin; Room: Ilse-Zimmermann-Saal (Ground floor)

Abstract

In a recent study, Boskovič (2024) argues for different surface (landing) positions for local subject wh/focus and non-subject wh/focus where “the landing site of subject wh-movement (as in, who left?) is argued to be lower than non-subject wh-movement (as in, who did he leave?) but higher than regular subjects (as in, Amy left).” Based on a cross-linguistic study of some of the Mabia (Gur) languages (of Ghana), I provide morphosyntactic evidence for Boskovič’s claim. I show that among the Mabia languages, the local subject wh/focus is (un)marked differently from the non-subject and long-distance subject wh/focus. The study shows that in some of the Mabia languages, both the wh-construction and the focus construction correspond directly with respect to the different landing positions. However, in some others, the two constructions do not always map with each other. In other words, some Mabia languages show unique asymmetries between wh-construction and focus construction. This raises a few questions for the proposed approach. Overall, the study adds to the ‘ever-present’ question of “What is it about (local) subjects?”