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Discourse Features of Ten Languages of West-Central Africa (SIL International and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, vol. 119)
Discourse Features of Ten Languages of WestCentral Africa - SIL International and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, vol. 119 Author:Levinson, Stephen H. This book, Discourse Features of Ten Languages of West-Central Africa, presents 12 papers on coherence, participant reference, and Relevance Theory in Niger-Congo and Chadic languages of Cameroon.The papers are organized into three sections to explain the linguistic features of Niger-Congo and Chadic languages of Cameroon whose meaning ... more »can only be explained by taking into account domains larger than the sentence. Folk tales and other narratives are used to illustrate discourse features of 10 languages from Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Zaïre. The first section concentrates on how coherence is maintained in a text when the author introduces a local discontinuity. The second section identifies factors which affect the amount of encoding used as a speaker refers to participants throughout a discourse. The third section presents data that applies insights from Relevance Theory. Describes markers of prominence and backgrounding. Table of ContentsPreface Stephen H. LevinsohnSection One: Cohesion and Discontinuities
Discontinuities in Coherent Texts Stephen H. Levinsohn
Cohesion and Discontinuities in N maand Expository Discourse Patricia L. Wilkendorf
Preposed Constituents and Discontinuities in Makaa Discourse Daniel P. Heath and Teresa A. Heath
Section Two: Participant Reference Encoding
Demonstrative Adjectives in Mofu-Gudur Folktales James N. Pohlig and Stephen H. Levinsohn
Participant Reference in N maand Narrative Discourse Carolyn P. Taylor
Field Procedures for the Analysis of Participant Reference in a Monologue Discourse Stephen H. Levinsohn
Section Three: Semantic Constraints on Relevance and Prominence Devices
Semantic Constraints on Relevance in Lobala Discourse David Morgan
Thematic Development and Prominence in Tyap Discourse Carl M Follingstad
Prominence in Bafut: Syntactic and Pragmatic Devices Joseph Ngwa Mfonyam
Further Thoughts on Four Discourse Particles in Mandara Annie Whaley Pohlig and James N. Pohlig
Notes on Markers of Parallelism in Meta by Klaus W. Spreda