当報告の内容は、それぞれの著者の著作物です。
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「アフリカ諸語の情報構造と言語形式の類型論的研究第 4 回研究会
Typological studies of information structures and linguistic forms in Africa」4th meeting
研究会は外部から招いたゲストスピーカーとアジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所に在籍する招へい研究員による 2 件の研究発表を中心に、4 月 28 日に開催された。海外からの、また、外部からの参加者をえて議論が活発におこなわれた。
2 件の研究発表の要旨は以下のとおりである。

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Ablaut/Umlaut in Bantu A: the case of Barombi and Bankon
Gratien G. Atindogbé
grat_atin@yahoo.com
Abstract
Vowel alternation in verb roots or a complete morphological change in the verb root is not a
strange language phenomenon. Some of the well-known morphological features of the verb in
Indo-European languages (e.g. Germanic and Romance) are the phenomena of 1) ‘ablaut’ or‘apophony’, i.e. a vowel change that accompanies a change in grammatical function, also
called gradation, (e.g.: i, a, u in English sing, sang, sung; e, a, u in German brechen, brach,gebrochen or o, i, ai in Italian parlo, parli, parlai; and 2) ‘umlaut’, a change in a vowel soundcaused by partial assimilation especially to a vowel or semivowel occurring in the following
syllable, also called vowel mutation, (e.g. the change of the vowels a, o, u to ä, ö, ü
respectively due to the presence of a [i] or [j] in the following syllable in German). This
grammatical inflection by alternation of the vowel of the verb root can signal change in tense(present to the past, e.g.: singsang), change in mood (indicative to past participle, e.g.
sing/sangsung). Bantu languages such as Bankon and Barombi (Lombe) also show vocalic
alternation in their verb roots:(1) Root: -- ‘give’ ([  o])ɓɔ̌ŋgive! butndı́-tā-ɓôŋ

Indirect order positivem-m- -t-la-m-o
1s-1s-TM-Rt-that-1s-Rt‘I want to give’(2) Root: -fmb- ‘jump’ (  e)fmb jump! but nd-ta-femb
Volitional positivem-m- -t-la-m-femb
1s-1s-TM-Rt-that-1s-Rt‘I want to jump’

Barombi
let us give!

ɓē-ɓôŋ

you (pl) give!

Indirect order negativem-n-da-t-la-m-o
1s-1s-Neg--Rt-that-1s-Rt‘I don’t want to give’

let us jump!

e-e-femb

Barombiyou (pl) jump!

Volitional negativem-n-da-t-la-m-femb
1s-1s-Neg--Rt-that-1s-Rt‘I don’t want to jump’

The concern of this paper is to look at the conditions under which vocalic alternation occurs inthese two languages of Bantu A, in order to better understand the functioning of their verb
systems. It is well known that the morphological behaviour of the verb led linguists to classify
languages into four categories: isolating (e.g. Vietnamese), agglutinative (e.g. Bantu languages
like Bankon and Barombi), inflectional (e.g. Germanic languages like English) andpolysynthetic (e.g. Chukchee) (Radford et al. 1999). The verb feature noted in Bankon and
Barombi being a characteristic of inflectional languages, this indicates that a classification withcompartments being completely tight does not exist and that some features are just universal.

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Focus in Fula: a dialectal approach
SummaryThis presentation is committed to the different strategies used by Fula to express focus. The
aims of the study are, amongst others, first to find out whether dialects display similar devices
for focus constructions or not; and beyond this whether the results of this analysis can tell us
about previous divisions of the Fula language in west-east dialect groups. The presentation isstructured as follows: as introduction, an overview of the language and its areal diffusion ispresented, followed by a short literature review of dialect and focus studies. The discussion on
the basic sentence structure precedes the analysis of focus constructions.
Fula belongs to the Niger-Congo phylum and is classified as an Atlantic language of thenorthern branch. Its most salient typological features are noun class suffixes, verbalextensions as well as an elaborate system of consonant alternation. Fula is widespread in theWest African area and covers a vast geographical belt reaching from the western Atlantic
coast to the Central African Republic. It is divided in some 6 different dialects, forming alight range of western-eastern disjunctions: western varieties are generally supposed to berepresented by Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Tooro and Maasina, whereas the Liptaako-Jelgooji complex,Gombe as well as the Adamawa dialects are seen to belong to the eastern varieties. This rather
areal based position is partly reflected in some linguistic features, but some others allow
different sub-categorizations (Gottschligg1995).
Since Arnott (1974), many scholars have provided descriptions of some dialectal features ofthe language, amongst others Josh, (1979), Miyamoto (1989, 1993), Leger (1998) Paster,(2005), Gottschligg (1995, 2009) etc. The most recurrent themes in these researches are, inaddition to phonological studies (e.g. on consonant alternation), the nominal and verbal
morphology, more specifically the noun class system, verbal extensions and flexions as wellas particular structures related to the use of complex subject pronouns.
Available dialect studies on focus constructions have been, beside of short descriptions inmore general grammars, up to now devoted to single varieties: some cases can be mentioned
like Fagerberg-Diallo (1983) on focus constructions in the Fuuta Tooro, Caron andMohammadou (1997), who presented a comparative study of focus in Hausa and theAdamawa variety of Fula, Diallo and Ermisch (forthcoming) on argument focus in Fuuta
Jaloo. Up to now no cross dialectal study on focus constructions in Fula is available.
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Before dealing with focus constructions, a short presentation of the declarative sentence andits main features precedes the investigation of focus clauses. This is needed to contrast theproperties of the two types of sentences. Main features of the declarative sentence are themobility of adjuncts, a strict word order of core constituents (SPO) as well as a moderate
prosodic prominence in form of a main stress on the predicate.
The analysis of argument focus has shown that, beside of expressing the functions of contrast,
it displays also formal devices like left dislocation, focus marker, prosodic prominence andmorphological changes. The study shows furthermore that dialects don not significantly differ
according to most of these formal strategies; syntactic and prosodic features are generally
shared throughout by all varieties. The main difference appears in the incorporation of lexical
devices as focus marker. Most of the dialects use a monosyllabic particle which precedes thefocus constituent. This particle is realized as ko in Fuuta Jaloo and Fuuta Tooro, •um inGombe, Adamawa and to some extend in Maasina. In Jelgooji and Liptaako wo or yo are themost common particles (Gottschligg 1992). The variety of Gaawoore, described byAlhassoumi-Sow (2003), doesn’t seem to employ any focus marker. In Maasina three sorts offocus markers occur: •um, yo and wo. But the use of a lexical particle is not uniformly
displayed by all dialects. Some employ it regularly, others not. Whereas the use of a focus
marker is compulsory in Fuuta Jaloo, it appears to be optional in all other varieties.
In conclusion, the study shows that (i) Fula varieties share most of the formal strategies used
to express focus, except the use of a focus marker. According to the nature of this particle (ii)dialects can be divided in three areas: a ko-dominant area in the westernmost region (Fuuta
Jaloo and Fuuta Tooro), using ko as focus marker, a •um-dominant area in the easternmostregion (Gombe and Adamawa) and a central area using different particles as focus marker: ko,•um, wo in Maasina, or wo, yo in the Jelgooji-Liptaako complex spoken in Burkina Faso.

References
Alhassoumi-Sow, Salamatou. 2003. Le gaawoore, parler des Peuls Gaawoobe (Nigeroccidentale), Langues et cultures africaines, 32. Louvain: Editions Peeters.
4Arnott, D. David W. 1974. ‘Some Aspects of the Study of Fula Dialects’. In Bulletin of theSchool of Oriental and African Studies, 37,1: 8-18.
Caron, B. Bernard and A. Mohammadou. 1997. ‘La spécification du terme topique en haoussa
et en peul : vers une caractérisation contrastive de la thématisation et de lafocalisation’. In La thématisation dans les langues. Caen, France.
Diallo, Abdourahmane and S. Ermisch. (forthcoming). ‘Konstituentenfokus im Fula des Fuuta
Jaloo’. Orientalistentag, Marburg 2010.
Fagerberg-Diallo, Sonja. 1983. ‘Discourse strategies in Pulaar: the use of Focus’. In Studies inAfrican Linguistics, 14,2: 141-157.
Gottschligg, Peter. 1992. Verbale Valenz und Kasus in Ful. Veröffentlichungen derwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Österreichs, Band 232. Wien : Universität Wien.
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Gottschligg, Peter. 2009. ‘Dialectal variance, standardization and the development of awritten language: the case of Fula’. In T. Bearth et al. (eds.): African languages inglobal society. Cologne, 315-327.
Josh, Ard. 1979. ‘A comparative and historical study of locative-based periphrastic verbal
forms in Fula dialects’. In Studies in African Linguistics, 10: 119-158.
Leger, Rudolf. 1998. ‘Noun Classes in Fulfulde. The Pular of Guinea and the Fulfulde ofSudan’. Festschrift für Professor Koval. Moscow.
Miyamoto, Ritzuko. 1989. ‘A note on some features of the Sokoto dialect of Fula’. In Journalof Asian and African Studies, 37: 16-30.
Miyamoto, Ritzuko. 1993. ‘A Study of Fula Dialects: Examining the Continuous/StativeConstructions’. In Senri Ethnological Studies 35: 215-230.
Paster, Mary. 2005. ‘Pulaar verbal extensions and phonologically driven affix order”. In G.
Booij and J. van Marle (eds.): Yearbook of Morphology. The Netherlands: Springer,
155-199.

Diallo Abdourahmane
Institute of African Studies
Goethe University, Frankfurt

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