Clefting and beyond in Tigrinya

Abstract

This paper aims to give a preliminary analysis of focus marking constructions in Tigrinya within the Universal Dependency (UD) framework. We identify three types of constructions that we consider clefting. All three involve a copula placed after the focus element, the UD root, and a subordinate verb form representing the presupposed information. Tigrinya has three possibilities for this subordinate verb, which we annotate as csubj, advcl, and xcomp. In each, we use the subrelation cleft to indicate the common structure and function of the different cleft types on a par with the use of subrelations pass for passive in different languages.

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