Abstract
This paper presents two experimental studies on the exhaustive inference associated with focus-background nà-clefts in Akan (among others, Boadi 1974; Duah 2015; Grubic, Renans & Duah 2019; Titov 2019), with a direct comparison to two recent experiments on German es-clefts employing an identical design (De Veaugh-Geiss et al. 2018). Despite the unforeseen response patterns in Akan in the incremental information-retrieval paradigm used, a post-hoc exploratory analysis reveals striking parallels between the two languages. The results are compatible with a unified approach both (i) cross-linguistically between Akan and German; and (ii) cross-sententially between nà-clefts (α nà P, ’It is α who did P’) and definite pseudoclefts, i.e., definite descriptions with identity statements (Nipa no a P ne α , ’The person who did P is α ’) (Boadi 1974; Ofori 2011). Participant variability in (non-)exhaustive interpretations is accounted for with a discourse-pragmatic analysis of cleft exhaustivity (Pollard & Yasavul 2016; De Veaugh-Geiss et al. 2018; Destruel & De Veaugh-Geiss 2018).
Highlights
Across numerous languages, bipartitional focus-background clefts of a form comparable to It is [α]focus [who did P]background have been argued to give rise to at least three layers of meaning: (i) the truth-conditional assertion corresponding to the canonical form ‘α did P’, (ii) the existence presupposition ‘someone did P’, and (iii) an exhaustivity inference ‘nobody other than α did P’
10 For the sake of clarity, it should be noted by the reader that, for reasons which will soon become clear, the analysis presented in Section 3 is exploratory, and prior to running the experiments the theoretical predictions were as described in De Veaugh-Feiss et al 2018 §2.1
3.2.1 Critical combinations I refer to the above early/late combinations as ‘critical’ since it is in these combinations that a difference between sentence types in terms of exhaustivity may emerge
Summary
Bipartitional focus-background clefts of a form comparable to It is [α]focus [who did P]background have been argued to give rise to at least three layers of meaning: (i) the truth-conditional assertion corresponding to the canonical form ‘α did P’, (ii) the existence presupposition ‘someone did P’, and (iii) an exhaustivity inference ‘nobody other than α did P’ Among these are sentences with the focus particle nà in Akan (among others, Ellis & Boadi 1969; Boadi 1974; Ofori 2011; Ameka 2010; Amfo 2010; Duah 2015; Pfeil & Genzel & Kügler 2015; Grubic & Renans & Duah 2019; Titov 2019). In the spirit of Boadi (1974), Kobele & Torrence (2006), and Grubic & Renans & Duah (2019), among others, I will refer to these ex situ constructions as nà-clefts
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