Colloque - Syntactic Cartography and African Languages : Clause Structure and Word Order Variation in Gude (Chadic)

Luigi Rizzi

Linguistique générale

Collège de France

Année 2023-2024

Colloque - Syntactic Cartography and African Languages : Clause Structure and Word Order Variation in Gude (Chadic)

Colloque organisé par Luigi Rizzi, Professeur du Collège de France, chaire linguistique générale

Avec le soutien de la Fondation du Collège de France.

Edmond Biloa, Université de Yaoundé 1, Cameroun

This work analyses the structure of the left periphery in focalized constructions, interrogatives, relatives and topicalized structures in Gude, a Chadic language of Cameroon. Constituent movements are attested in this language, the basic word order of which seems to be VSO (Verb-Subject-Object). Syntactic Cartography is deemed capable of accounting for this empirical material variation. The word order attested in this language is derived via verb movement. Moreover, focalization triggers verb movement. The structure of topic constructions and the topic-focus distribution are discussed. Finally, what can the Gude data tell us about the structure of the left periphery with respect to ForceP and IntP?