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Focus marking in Ìkálẹ̀ and the final-over-final condition

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Abstract
This paper investigates ex-situ focalization in Ìkálẹ̀, a Yorùbá dialect of Nigeria, which appears to violate the Final-Over-Final Condition (FOFC) due to its clause-final morphological focus marking. Starting with a description of focus realization in the language, I propose that Ìkálẹ̀’s ex-situ focus particle realizes a head-final FocP, which dominates a head-initial TP. I argue that such a FOFC-violating structure is best analyzed using the phase-based approach to FOFC’s enforcement (à la Richards, N. (2016). Contiguity Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Erlewine, M. Y. (2017). Low sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese and the Final-over-Final Constraint. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 261, 37–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), rather than through extended projections. I further discuss two prominent alternative approaches to FOFC, ( (2014). A Syntactic Universal and Its Consequences. Linguistic Inquiry 451, 169–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar & Biberauer, T. (2017a). The final-over-final condition and particles. In M. Sheehan, T. Biberauer, A. Holmberg, and I. Roberts (Eds.), The Final-over-Final Condition: A Syntactic universal, pp. 187–296. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar asymmetric approach and Zeijlstra, H. (2023). Fofc and what left–right asymmetries may tell us about syntactic structure building. Journal of Linguistics 59(1), 179–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar symmetric approach), and the potential challenges they face. I then propose that the current analysis may be extended to two other Benue-Congo languages (Igede and Nupe) and two other dialects of Yorùbá (Oǹdó and Òkı̀tı̀pupa) with similar ex-situ clause-final morphological focus marking.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background on Ìkálẹ̀ and its Focus realization
    • 2.1Basic syntax of Ìkálẹ̀
    • 2.2Focus marking in Ìkálẹ̀: An apparent exception to FOFC
    • 2.3Arguing for the structural position of rı́n
  • 3.A proposed analysis for rı́n-marking and FOFC
  • 4.Alternative analyses to FOFC and Clause-Final Particles (CFPs)
    • 4.1Biberauer et al.’s (2014) asymmetric analysis and ‘acategorial’ status of CFPs
      • 4.1.1Biberauer et al.’s (2014) proposal for FOFC analysis
      • 4.1.2Biberauer et al. (2014) and Biberauer’s (2017a) ‘acategorial’ analysis of CFPs
    • 4.2Zeijlstra’s (2023) symmetric structural approach
    • 4.3Concerns with the phase-based approach
  • 5.Ex-situ focus structure and the anti-symmetric syntax
  • 6.Other clause-final focus marking languages
    • 6.1Two other dialects of Yorùbá
    • 6.2Two other clause-final focus marking languages
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (88)
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