More on in situ WH- and focus constructions in Hausa

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Abstract

Hausa is conventionally analyzed as having only one strategy for both focus and wh-constructions--fronting, with special inflectional marking on the TAM. Recently, however, some new facts have emerged which demonstrate that focus can also occur IN SITU, with a general TAM (Jaggar 2001:496-98; Green & Jaggar 2003). Hausa in situ wh-questions and focus constructions are especially common with adverbial (especially locative) elements and/or nonverbal predicates and so are more restricted in their distribution than the ex situ strategies, but they represent an interesting new problem which requires extensive study of naturally occurring discourse and detailed syntactic analysis. The Hausa facts also need to be viewed in the wider comparative-historical context of the syntax of in situ focus and wh-constructions in related West Chadic languages.