From copula to focus, vice versa, or neither?

Abstract

This paper studies the system of non-verbal predication of Mano, a South Mande language, based on primary data, including elicited utterances and a corpus of spontaneous speech. The main analytical question that I address concerns the relationship between non-verbal predication and focus marking. I argue that in Mano, the focus meaning arises as a pragmatic interpretation of identifying or presentative constructions with non-verbal predicators under particular contextual conditions. As a result, focus markers may not need to be distinguished as a syntactic and semantic class separate from non-verbal predicators. This discussion aims to shed light on the origin and interactional function of focus marking in Mande.

Keywords

• focus
• non-verbal predication
• predicative demonstratives
• Mano
• interaction
• pragmatic cooptation