Feature 29. Overt marking of information structure

found in question(s): 67a, 67b

Definition and illustration

A language features overt marking of information structure when there are designated morphological markers that primarily encode information-structural information. Prominent examples stem from Mande and Bantu languages, as illustrated by our Questionnaire data from Jula (Mande, Côte d'Ivoire):

(1)

Differential argument marking does not fall into this category because case morphology is not primarily information structural.

This feature checks for an alternative, functional explanation for the availability of word order variability. Based on the concept of compensation, we expect that overt marking of information structure leads to more rigid word order. This is because word order variation is often employed for information-structural purposes. If information structure is already marked morphologically, additional use of word order variability could be overly redundant and hence uneconomical from a functional perspective. Under such a perspective, one may predict the absence of A-scrambling in such languages, although so far this is mainly based on anecdotal experience.

Correlations

Question 67:

• Prediction 1: overt IS marking → little word order variability (many zeros in features 1-5)
• Prediction 2: overt IS marking → ¬A-scrambling

References