Question Formation and Focus Construction in Owo：A Yoruba Dialect

• 作者: Boluwaji Oshodi
• 来源期刊: Macrolinguistics
• 学科: 工学
• 关键词: QUESTIONS FOCUSING Owo YorUba TRANSFORMATION
• 年，卷（期）: 2016,（1）
• 页码范围: 126-142
• 页数: 17页
• 分类号: TP317.4

摘要

Question formation and focusing are two transformational processes attested in Standard Yoruba both of which have been extensively discussed in previous studies.However, very little is known about these concepts in Owo (〇w〇) a south-East Yoruba (Yoruba) dialect. This study examines the concept of questions and focusing in (^)w〇) dialect with a comparison of the processes in Standard Yoruba. The study revealed some differences as well as similarities in the two processes in (J)w^ and standard Yoruba. Just like in Standard Yoruba, question markers in 〇wo normally occur in sentence initial and final positions. However, the question marker de constantly appears sentence medially before and before verbs in certain constructions. Furthermore, while the focus marker in Yoruba normally occurs immediately after the focused item with a stable form, the focus marker in (w o usually occurs at the sentence final position as a reduplicated form of the last syllable of the final item. Also, a pronoun which indicates number and agreement usually occurs immediately after the focused item in (wo. Finally, just like in YorUba,there is a syntactic relationship between question and focusing in (w o dialect.