Verb focus in Haitian
2012; John Benjamins Publishing Company; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1075/cll.43.03gla
ISSN0920-9026
AutoresHerby Glaude, Anne Zribi-Hertz,
Tópico(s)Linguistics and Discourse Analysis
ResumoThis article bears on VFD (Verb Fronting with Doubling) constructions in Haitian, whose left periphery contains a bare homonym of the lexical verb and which trigger a Verb-Focus effect. We seek to update the description of VFD and to reach a satisfactory analysis providing empirical support for addressing the theoretical issues central to the present volume. Our study leads us to conclude that: (i) The syntactic operations involved in the derivation of VFD are available independently of reiteration; (ii) The semantic effect of VFD is not ‘intensive’ but contrastive, and arises from restrictive modification, a form-meaning relation hardly analysable as ‘iconic’; (iii) Haitian VFD may have arisen from a regular recombination of features partaking in focus effects in French, Gbe, and Universal Grammar.
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