TY - JOUR AU - Olabode Thomas, , Abimbola PY - 2018/12/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Pronouns and the Activation of Focus in Aíká: A Minimalist Description JF - Journal of The Linguistic Association of Nigeria JA - JOLAN VL - 21 IS - 3 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://jolan.com.ng/index.php/home/article/view/192 SP - 221-239 AB - <p>Focusing is the previously unshared/unfamiliar (i.e. new) information. It is observed that not all&nbsp;pronoun types can activate focusing in Aíká. However, little has been said on how pronoun can be&nbsp;focused in Aíká. Therefore, this paper adopts the Copy Theory of movement in Minimalist Program&nbsp;as its theoretical framework and investigated Aíká pronouns in focus constructions with regards to&nbsp;identifying focusable vs unfocusable pronouns and derivation of pronoun focusing. The paper&nbsp;identifies two types of personal pronouns- emphatic [+emphasis] and unemphatic [-emphasis]&nbsp;pronouns. Emphatic pronoun is preposeable just like other DPs. Hence, it is movement licensing,&nbsp;activating focus without inducing pronoun substitution in the clause. It occupies spec-Focus Phrases&nbsp;as <em>new </em>information. Unemphatic pronoun is inert to movement. It does not move to specFocP/Emphatic Phrase (EmpP). It specifies [-emphasis; -focus] as <em>given </em>information. In derivation&nbsp;of pronoun focusing, the paper concludes that the computation selects emphatic pronoun for focus&nbsp;while unemphatic pronoun is selected for given information without substituting one pronoun for the&nbsp;other. The target derivation is determined by what the expected output is because that language&nbsp;speakers’ use pronouns referentially for discourse purposes as new/focus on the one hand and&nbsp;given/topic information on the other hand.</p> ER -