Preposition stranding and pied-piping in Yoruba focus constructions

Ajayi, Joseph (2019) Preposition stranding and pied-piping in Yoruba focus constructions. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (3MB)

Abstract

The thesis examines P-stranding and pied-piping in focus constructions in Yoruba language, one of the Benue-Congo languages spoken in Western part of Nigeria. This research is unique given the fact that while existing literature and theories on P-stranding and pied-piping have solely hammered cross-linguistic differences, the thesis discovers intra-linguistic features of P-stranding or pied-piping one. On the contrary, Yoruba exhibits both P-stranding the pied-piping features in similar environments in focus constructions. It is discovered that a number of prepositions can only strand while some others can solely pied-pipe. The thesis further examines another behavioral patterns of prepositions in Yoruba focus constructions. Interestingly and quite strangely, it is discovered that some prepositions drop, or pied-pipe with the occurrence of resumptive pronouns in Yoruba focus. These multifarious behavioral patterns of prepositions in Yoruba focus pose a great challenge as to how to account for these patterns within the existing literature and theories which rather deal with P-stranding as cross-linguistic affairs. The thesis, however, tackles this challenge by extracting two different theories to account for these preposition features in Yoruba focus as each of the theories (Abels 2003 Phase Theory and Law 1998 Incorporation Theory) cannot, in isolation, capture the features. The thesis proves that the behavioral patterns of the preposition in Yoruba focus with respect to stranding, pied-piping and dropping are inherent in the prepositions themselves rather than the syntactic configurations of the focus constructions in which they appear.

Actions (login required)

View Item