Information Processing in Akan Question-word Fronting and Focus Constructions

Wh-question fronting and focus constructions in Akan (a Kwa language spoken in Ghana) have three structural characteristics in common: i) left-peripheral dislocation of a constituent, ii) introduction of a clitic morpheme (referred to as focus marker) after the dislocated constituent, and iii) pronoun resumption in a canonical clause position. In comparing these constructions to each other and to related canonical constructions, the question that one is confronted with is whether the same discourse-contextual information is consistently expressed in both constructions. Using the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (Kaplan and Bresnan 1982; Bresnan 2001; etc.), we show in this paper that both wh-question fronting and focus constructions essentially share common representations in the constituent (c-) structure and the functional (f-) structure. Considering the individual discourse-contextual information that is expressed in wh-question fronting and focus constructions, as compared to the discourse-contextual information expressed in the respective in-situ and canonical clause counterparts, however, we show that a variance is drawn between them in the information (i-) structure. In a further constraint-based analysis, Optimality-Theoretic LFG (OT-LFG: Bresnan 2000; Kuhn 2001; etc.) is used to clarify and strengthen the suggestions made.