Please join us for a special talk by Jenneke van der Wal (Harvard). The talk will be preceded by presentations from Bobangi field methods class (see here), though you are welcome to attend any part.

Where: Education 216

When: Wednesday May 3rd, 3:45–4:45pm

Title: Investigating focus marking in Luganda and Lingala

Abstract: While it is admittedly difficult to investigate information structure in an unfamiliar language, in this talk I hope to show that there are some manageable diagnostics for focus that can be applied in elicitation. Based on data from Luganda and Lingala I show why the discoveries about focus marking in Bantu languages are crucial for understanding both the synchronic analysis and the diachronic development of focus. (full abstract)