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Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages: Studies in prosody and syntax
Edited by Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude and Martine Vanhove
[Studies in Language Companion Series 199] 2018
► pp. 265–296

Chapter 10
The influence of the state distinction on word order and information structure in Kabyle and Siwi (Berber)

| LLACAN, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, CNRS
| Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (DAAM)
This paper, based on monologues and dialogues recorded in the field, shows how the presence (Kabyle) or the absence (Siwi) of an inflectional marking on nouns called state impacts the number and functions of grammatical relations and information structure constructions in those two closely related Berber languages. Indeed, in Kabyle, state allows to distinguish between subject and object when two nouns follow each other after the verb, whereas in Siwi, sequences of two postverbal nominal arguments are avoided; only AVO is attested. As linear ordering is also a formal means for information structure coding, this results in Siwi having fewer constructions available for that functional domain, and consequently, different information structure functions encoded through linear ordering than Kabyle.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Kabyle and Siwi
  • 2.Grammatical relations
    • 2.1Coding means
    • 2.2Possible constructions
      • 2.2.1Vaff(cl) + one noun
      • 2.2.2Vaff(cl) + two nouns
    • 2.3Conclusion on grammatical relations
  • 3.Information structure
    • 3.1Same constructions, same functions: Noun outside the prosodic boundary
      • 3.1.1Function of N (+F0 rise) [Vaff(cl) (X)]
      • 3.1.2Function of [Vaff(cl) (X) ] N
    • 3.2Same constructions, same functions, noun inside the prosodic group containing the verb: Function of V(O)
    • 3.3Different form-function mappings
      • 3.3.1Function of the noun(s) in postverbal position
      • 3.3.2Function of [NVaff(N)] in Kabyle
      • 3.3.3Function of [NaffV] in Siwi
      • 3.3.4Function of [NVaffN] in Siwi
    • 3.4Summary
  • 4.Implications and conclusions
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 2 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.199.10met
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