EAN: 9783447115308

INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN FULA-SERER - VIKTORIA ...

How information is structured  and the formal means by which such information is encoded 
differs considerably across the languages of the world. Word order  verb morphology  special
particles  and prosody  these are but a few of the devices that can help the hearer to dissect
information of varying degrees of importance in specific discourse contexts. The field of
linguistics dedicated to the study of such devices and their pragmatic effect in discourse is
called Information Structure  which in this monograph is applied to the Fula-Serer group with a
particular focus on Pular  the Guinean dialect of the Fula macrolanguage. Fula is the most
geographically widespread language in Africa  spoken in 18 countries  making it ideally suited
for comparative studies. Operating within the functional framework  this study by Viktoria Apel
provides a systematic description of different construction types in Pular with an analysis of
the information-structural encoding of each. From this a number of key questions arise: how
frequent are these construction types in natural discourse? Do dialectal differences exist? How
comparable are the results of these analyses to what we find in Serer  Fula's genealogically
closest sister language? Information structure in Fula-Serer serves to answer these and other
enquiries and is supplemented by an expansive and fully linguistically annotated corpus of
Pular natural discourse.

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