1.1 Barayin morphosyntax overview

Barayin is SVO in its unmarked word order, as are most Chadic languages (Frajzyngier 1996: 15; Newman 2006: 199; Schuh 2003: 58). Indirect objects and adjuncts follow the object, and the final positions in a sentence are occupied by a negative marker and a question marker. There is also a pre-subject clause-internal position which will be discussed in Section 1.2. The following simplified template gives an overview of the basic clause structure:

Figure 1:

Simplified word order template for Barayin.

Subjects normally occur immediately before the predicate, whether the predicate is verbal or non-verbal, and whether the subject is nominal or pronominal. An overt subject is not obligatory and can be omitted in any case where the speaker deems the context clear enough for the hearer to discern the unstated subject. Indirect objects, locative arguments, adjuncts and adverbs typically occur following the direct object (if present) in a SVOX pattern. Interrogative mood (yes/no question) can be expressed by intonation, or is marked by a clause-final marker. Negation is expressed through a marker do in the pentultimate position. It can only be followed by an interrogative marker. Reported speech clauses (whether direct or indirect quotation) are typically preceded by a quotative which indexes the person, number and gender features of the speaker.

There are several morphologically distinct pronominal paradigms including: independent pronouns, subject proclitics, direct object suffixes and indirect object suffixes. These forms are given in Table 1. Each paradigm has ten pronouns. There is one dual (inclusive) form in the first person, and an inclusive/exclusive distinction in the first person plural. Note that the first person plural inclusive forms are bimorphemic. They are made up of the combination of a first person dual inclusive form with the enclitic nà (glossed pl) with a low tone–-not to be confused with the background marker ná with a high tone. Second and third person singular forms (and any agreement-sensitive words like adjectives and demonstratives) are distinguished for gender (masculine and feminine), but plurals are not.

Independent pronouns have the same distribution as a noun phrase. They can function as a subject or direct object, but do so more rarely than other forms. They are used in prepositional phrases, and are also the vocative form. Subject pronouns are not prefixes, but they are phonologically dependent on the following or preceding word, and have a limited syntactic distribution. They typically occur immediately before the verb (or non-verbal predicate). Only a limited number of adverbial words can intervene between a subject pronoun and the predicate. Third person subject pronouns can combine with one of three adnominal demonstratives (gisg.m, disg.f, nipl) to create a demonstrative pronoun with the same distribution as a noun phrase or Independent pronoun: ka gi, ti di, and ni ni.

Direct and indirect object suffixes can have a pronominal function when they occur without a co-referential noun phrase in the same clause. They can also function as agreement markers when they occur with a co-referential noun phrase under certain discourse conditions. In a pattern similar to differential object marking, direct object suffixes normally co-occur with a (co-referential) definite nominal direct object, and do not co-occur if the nominal direct object is indefinite. However, there are some exceptions to this pattern. For more discussion, see Lovestrand (2012: 135).

Tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) are primarily encoded in verbal suffixes. TAM suffixes precede pronominal suffixes in the verbal morphology, and are often subject to suppletion or deletion when a pronominal suffix is present. TAM suffixes cannot combine to create complex TAM forms. The seven TAM suffixes are shown in Table 2 with the label describing their primary function. Future tense is expressed by a construction in which an oblique preposition ŋ is followed by a verb in the infinitive form.

Barayin, like all Chadic languages, is a tonal language. Tone is essentially lexical in function. Questions can be formed by raising the tone and elongating the final vowel of a declarative clause. A similar intonational pattern occurs on the final vowel of a relative clause if followed by a demonstrative (Lovestrand 2012: 67). There are not any clear correlations between tone and any grammatical or information-structural functions. In the orthographic representation of the language used here, tonal marking is normally omitted.

1.2 Barayin information structure overview

Topic is used here in its more restricted sense as “the thing which the proposition expressed by the sentence is about” (Lambrecht 1994: 118). It is important to keep this definition of topic in mind since several studies on markers similar to ná in Central Chadic languages have used a much broader definition of topic (Section 1.3). Focus is defined as “the semantic component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition” (Lambrecht 1994: 213).

The study of information structure in Barayin is still very limited, but some preliminary assumptions can be made that will be helpful in the discussions throughout this article. Barayin does not have any particles dedicated to marking topic and focus of a particular noun phrase. It is generally the case that the topic will be a pronominal subject proclitic, or an assumed but unspoken subject.

It is likely the case that post-nominal demonstratives have an information structure function, but this issue has not yet been explored. There are two other information structure features of the language that are not in the scope of this study, but will be mentioned here briefly: the pre-subject position and a preverbal marker joo or doo with contrastive meaning. The pre-subject position (Figure 1) clearly has some type of pragmatic meaning, but it is not well-understood. Interrogative pronouns, which are inherently focus words (Lambrecht 1994: 283), often occur in situ without any additional marking, however, they can also be preposed in a position before the subject, as in example (5).

Based on example (5), it would be plausible to suggest that the pre-subject position is a type of focus position. That analysis is less plausible for the rare cases of pre-subject object placement, as in jeedo ‘mountain’ in example (6). In the context, the mountain has already been mentioned in the preceding sentence, and the clause containing the object in a pre-subject position is a type of tail-head linkage followed by the marker ná (Section 3.8).

Adverbs and adjuncts can also appear in a position before the subject, as in example (7). Adverbs that occur in this context are apparently not focus elements either.

Another possibility is that there is more than one pre-subject position. Further testing would be required to know if more than one unmarked pre-subject constituent can occur, and in what orders they can occur in. Since the information structure status of the pre-subject position is not the point of this article, the only relevant point to be made is that the pre-subject position(s) occur(s) structurally after any element marked by ná. In other words, elements marked by ná occur in a clause-external position before all of the elements of the word order template given in Figure 1. Example (8) shows ná followed by a pre-subject adverb. The example starts with a clause-external locative expression marked by ná. The first element of the clause following ná is a pre-subject adverbial direkt.

The second information structure element to mention is the pre-verbal particle joo or doo, glossed foc for ‘contrastive focus’. Its meaning is still poorly understood, but it appears to have scope over the entire predication, not over a single noun phrase or other constituent. It can optionally occur in negative sentences, primarily those with a subjunctive verb, such as the imperative in example (9) or the prohibitive in example (10). However, joo/doo can also occur without negation when there is a contrastive meaning, as in example (11).

1.3 Background markers in other languages

The term background is to be understood in the sense of Ameka (1991). Ameka describes a so-called “terminal” particle lá in Ewe which marks constituents that “typically carry information that a speaker wants an addressee to assume in order for him/her to process the rest of the discourse more easily” and which function as the “the domain within which the rest of the predication should be interpreted” (Ameka 1991: 152, 154). He concludes that the “invariant function of the terminal particles is to mark background information” (Ameka 1991: 152). In Ameka’s approach (and linguists writing on similar particles seem to agree), it is assumed that background is not incompatible with topic (“what the sentence is about”). His critique of those who have analyzed lá as a topic marker is not that it is contradictory, but that it is incomplete. Background can be understood as a larger category that includes the notion of topic (“what the sentence is about”), but is broader in that it also includes the function of sentence-initial dependent clauses and other types of information. In contrast, Ameka is clear that background and focus are incompatible (Ameka 1991: 152-153).

Many authors have described a particle with a similar function in Central Chadic languages. A relatively early study of the Central Chadic language Zulgo labels the marker ká a “Topic Marker” (Haller and Watters, 1984). Their use of “topic” comes from Chafe (1976: 51) who writes that “‘Real’ topics (in topic-prominent languages) are not so much ‘what the sentence is about’ as ‘the frame within which the sentence holds’.” Although they take the label “topic” from Chafe, Haller and Watters (1984) propose a definition based on what Dik (1981: 19) calls “theme”: “The Theme specifies the universe of discourse with respect to which the subsequent predication is presented as relevant.” Haller and Watters (1984) argue that this concept gives a unified account of all of the uses of the marker ká in Zulgo. Haiman (1978) proposes a similar understanding of “topic” in his analysis of Hua, a Papuan language, claiming that the identical morphosyntactic marking for conditional protases and “topic” noun phrases not only shows that conditional clauses are “topics” in Hua, but that conditional clauses should be universally considered “topics”.^[2] This use of the label “topic” is not followed in this article primarily to avoid potential confusion with topic as “what the sentence is about”. For example, Givn (1990: 846) argues against the use of “topic” for adverbial clauses by Haiman (1978) and Thompson and Longacre (1985) because of a clash with his definition of topic as “what the sentence is about”. Chafe saw this potential confusion over terminology as a significant issue, and later changed his terminology from “topic” to “starting point” (Chafe 1987: 22). Nonetheless, there is an obvious similarity between the concept of background used in this article, and the sense of “topic” as used by Chafe (1976), Haiman (1978) and other authors.

Several other linguists have followed Haller and Watters (1984) in using the label “Topic Marker” for a similar marker in other Central Chadic languages (Buwal: Viljoen (2013;2015: 612); Gemzek: Scherrer (2012); Mofu-Gudur: Hollingsworth and Peck (1992); Hollingsworth (1985); Moloko and Muyang: Smith (2003); Ouldemè and Vamè: Kinnaird (1999); Wandala: Pohlig and Pohlig (1994)). However, most of these studies offer a slightly different descriptions of the meaning of “Topic Marker”. For example, Hollingsworth and Peck (1992), Scherrer (2012) and Smith (2003) prefer a description in terms of “point of departure”. Point of departure has a two-part definition: (1) “It establishes a starting point for the communication;” and (2) It “cohesively anchors the subsequent clause(s) to something which is already in the context (i.e., to something accessible in the hearer’s mental representation)” (Levinsohn 2012: 40). Again, this definition is very similar to Ameka’s “background”, Chafe’s “topic” and Dik’s “theme”, but it is more restricted by an emphasis on a link between the “point of departure” and the context (see Section 3.8).

Other works on Central Chadic languages describe a marker with a similar distribution and function, but avoid giving any particular label to the marker (Gidar: Frajzyngier (2008: 379, 385–387, 437, 441); Hdi: Frajzyngier (2002: 391); Lamang: Wolff (1983: 244–247, 2015: 296-298); Mbuko: Gravina (2003); Wandala: Fluckiger and Whaley (1983)). At least two other labels have been proposed for these markers in Central Chadic languages: “spacer” (Dooley and Levinsohn 2001: 128) and “comment-clause marker” (Frajzyngier 2012).

In East Chadic languages, the branch Barayin belongs to, there has been very little study done on information structure and discourse particles. However, Lele has a marker na which, in addition to functioning as a demonstrative, also has a similar distribution to ná in Barayin (Frajzyngier 2001: 333–335, 420-423, 464–467). Schuh (2005: 89–95) identifies similar (unnamed) particles in four West Chadic languages: Bole, Ngamo, Karekare, Ngizim. These markers are also discussed by Güldemann (2016: 558–565) who cites Gimba (2005) as a source on the same marker in Bole, as does Zimmermann (2011: 1174–1176) in his discussion of the Bole data.

Outside of Chadic languages, a strikingly similar type of marker, also ná, is found in Bagirmi. Jacob (2010: 126) describes ná in Bagirmi as a “background marker” in addition to its functions as a determiner and a marker at the end of a relative clause. Jacob’s analysis is also discussed by Güldemann (2016: 565–567). Bagirmi is a Nilo-Saharan language that borders Barayin. Boujol and Clupot (1941: 34) report that the Barayin were previously in a vassal-suzerain relationship with the Bagirmi, and some older Barayin speakers still say they know how to speak Bagirmi. This seems to indicate that the similarity between Barayin and Bagirmi could potentially be at least partially explained by language contact.

Farther away, but still in Africa, Güldemann (2016: 567–572) draws attention to several publications about a particle la in Dagbani and other Oti-Volta (Niger-Congo) languages of Ghana. The marker is sometimes described as a focus marker, which happens to be isomorphic with a definite marker. Güldemann (2016: 570) concludes that the marker “is best analyzed as a background marker” on par with those in Chadic languages and Bagirmi. In his discussion of the background marker in Ewe (also a Niger-Congo language of Ghana), Ameka (1991: 168) lists a few other West African languages that have a similar marker, and suggests that background markers also occur in Polish, Thai and Japanese.

Besides their functional similarities, these markers are also similar to each other in that they can follow both sentence-initial noun phrases, and sentence-initial finite clauses. For example, “in Zulgo the particle ka, which is clearly used to mark a topicalized phrasal element, can also be used to mark clausal elements which at first glance appear to be cases of subordination” (Haller and Watters 1984: 27). The particle lá in Ewe “occurs at the end of preposed adverbial and nominal phrases” and “also occurs at the end of various kinds of initial dependent clauses, for example conditionals” (Ameka 1991: 145–146). It is very common for background markers to be isomorphic with a demonstrative or definite marker, as well as a marker following relative clauses. However, this is not the case in Barayin. The particle ná is distinct from the demonstratives gi, di and ni. In Barayin, these demonstratives (not the background marker ná) optionally occur in the position at the end of a relative clause.

Güldemann (2016: 571) warns that “la-like particles are numerous across Oti-Volta but they do not all share the same functional and syntactic profile. So whatever the analysis of la in Dagbani and Gurene, it must not be transferred rashly to related languages with similar particles...” Similarly, Ameka (1991: 168) points out the need for further investigation of these similarities, but cautions that a “prerequisite for such a research is the systematic documentation and analysis of the data in individual languages.” This study of ná in Barayin contributes to the need for documentation of discourse particles in individual languages, leaving aside the intriguing comparative research for future work.

1.4 Data sources

The data used for the analysis of the particle ná in Barayin consists primarily of transcribed monologues, most of which are appended to Lovestrand (2012). Two additional more-recently transcribed stories were added to the corpus since they contain some uses of ná not seen in the other texts. These two stories are not yet published. Throughout this article, data extracted from these texts are referenced by a one word abbreviation of the title and the line number. The abbreviations are in Table 3. These nine transcribed texts will be referred to as the “corpus”.

The particle ná occurs rarely in elicited language data of isolated phrases, but it is very common in the corpus of transcribed recordings of natural speech. In 599 (arbitrarily) divided lines of text (3963 words), it occurs 348 times. On average, more than half of the lines have the particle. In a slightly larger collection of fifteen texts, the marker ná is the most common word (690 occurrences), followed by the preposition ŋ (612 occurrences), and then the third person subject pronouns (294 sg.m, 232 pl, 168 sg.f).

2.1 Term-ná-proposition

This section gives examples of the term-ná-proposition construction. In many of the instances of this construction, the term occurring before the marker ná can be identified as a subject, object or indirect object of the proposition following the ná. In some cases, a pronominal element co-referential with the ná-marked term occurs in the following proposition. In example (12), the word mijjo ‘man/person’ before the marker ná can be identified as the subject of the following clause. The independent pronoun kalla in the subject position of the following proposition is co-referential with mijjo.

It is not the case that a marked sentence-initial term always has to have its grammatical function in the following proposition identified by an overt pronoun. In the seven texts appended to Lovestrand (2012), there are eighteen examples where the ná-marked term in the sentence-initial position can be identified as the subject of the following proposition. In only two of those cases does the following proposition have a co-referential subject pronoun. In most cases, there is no overt subject in the proposition following ná, as in example (13). In this case, the subject role of the ná-marked term is identified by its semantic role and the gap in the subject position of the following clause.

It is much less common for a term marked by ná to be identified as the direct or indirect object of the following proposition. In the seven texts appended to Lovestrand (2012), there are only three examples of a direct object occurring in this construction. In one case, example (14), the following clause has a pronominal object suffix that is co-referential with the sentence-initial term.

In the other two cases, one of which is shown in example (15), the following clause does not have an object suffix or pronoun co-indexing the sentence-initial term. The word ragga ‘mat’ is understood to have the semantic role of patient, which is the semantic role normally assigned to a direct object by this verb in this context.

In the same seven texts, there is only one example of a ná-marked sentence-initial constituent that can be identified as the indirect object of the following proposition. In example (16), the verb of the proposition has an indirect object suffix (glossed dat) that is co-referential with the sentence-initial constituent.

Adjunctival prepositional phrases or adverbs also commonly occur in the sentence-initial position before the marker ná, as in example (17).

It is also common for locatives indicating source or setting to appear in a sentence-initial position followed by the marker ná, as in examples (18) and (19).

In example (20), a sentence-initial ideophone is followed by ná. Ideophones in Barayin generally have the same syntactic distribution as adverbs.

2.2 Proposition-ná-proposition

In addition to marking a single sentence-initial term, the marker ná can also appear between two finite clauses, as seen in examples (21) and (22).

The marker ná never occurs at the end of a sentence. An adverbial clause marked by a clause-initial to ‘if/when’ (like that in example (22)) can occur either before or after the main clause. The subordinating conjunction to is called a conditional marker but, as will be seen in Section 3.4, it can have either conditional (‘if’) or temporal (‘when’) meaning. When the conditional clause follows the main clause, it is not possible for the marker ná to occur at the end of the adverbial clause, as is shown in example (23). The marker ná cannot be described syntactically as a clause-final marker.

2.3 Term-ná-term

In all of the examples of term-ná-term structures examined, the first term is a noun phrase. The second term can also be a noun phrase, as in examples (24) and (25). Example (24) is an identificational construction where the pronominal preceding ná is co-referential with the noun phrase following ná (Section 3.6).

In example (25), the noun phrase preceding ná is the unspoken subject of the nominal predicate following ná. The noun an˜a (often with a possessive suffix indexing the subject) is the standard way to express existence or presence in Barayin (Lovestrand 2012: 205–207). In this case, even though only a single word follows ná, that single word must be analyzed as a non-verbal predicate, just as it would if it were a single verb. This analysis can also plausibly be applied to the noun phrase following ná in example (24), as will be proposed in Section 2.7.

In example (26) the second term is an adjective. However, in this particular context the adjective does not modify the sentence-initial noun. In the story, a husband is searching for his wife who was taken back by her family. The wife does not know whether or not to respond to his calls. In this example, the grandmother speaks to the daughter empathizing with her since, in this situation involving her husband, it is difficult to know what to do. The adjective ‘difficult’ is functioning as a predicate describing the situation. It is not modifying the husband.

2.4 Proposition-ná-term

There are fewer examples of the proposition-ná-term construction than the types described above. In examples (27) and (28), the word following ná is an interrogative word. Content questions are often formed using an interrogative word in situ or in a sentence-initial position. However, interrogatives can also occur in a clause-final position when preceded by ná. In this construction, the speaker first gives all of the presupposed elements of the question, followed by the marker ná, and then the appropriate question word.

There are also a few examples where the term following ná is not an interrogative word. In example (29), the final term is an ideophone.

Example (30) is an elicited example modeled after similar sentences documented in other Chadic languages (e.g., Buwal: Viljoen (2013: 607); Mbuko: Gravina (2003: 7)). The marker ná separates a clause-final direct object from the rest of the clause.

2.5 Sentence-initial ná (ná-proposition)

In just two cases, the particle ná appears to occur in a sentence-initial position. These are shown in examples (31) and (32).

The analysis of the clauses in examples (31c) and (32c) as a distinct sentence from the preceding clause is based both on the meaning of the clauses and the prosody. In both examples, there is a noticeable pause before ná. A pause preceding ná is rare, if it at all occurs elsewhere. In terms of meaning, there is no obvious logical connection between the preceding clause and the clause followed by ná.

2.6 Multiple instances of ná in one sentence

It is not uncommon for more than one ná to appear in the same sentence. Güldemann (2016: 567) points out that this also happens in Bagirmi, but not in the four West Chadic languages he studied. In Barayin, this partitioning of the pre-clausal space can take several forms. For example, it can be a sequence of sentence-initial terms, each marked with ná as in example (33) where the two terms are co-referential.

It is also possible to string together more than one clause marked by ná as in example (34).^[3]

The use of the marker ná can create even more complex sentences. The marker ná occurs four times in example (35). It first is used with three consecutive terms (a location, the subject of the following clause, and a modifier of that subject), and then it occurs again between that clause and the next clause.

2.7 Formal syntactic structure of ná

The syntactic distribution of ná can be generalized by stating that ná must always be followed by a clause or predicate. This approach would allow ná to be treated as a type of complementizer. In an X-bar theoretic analysis, it could be postulated that ná is the head of a CP projection, of which the following material is the complement, and the preceding material is the specifier. This analysis aligns with the strong pattern of left-headedness in the language. The specifier position must then allow a variety of lexical categories such as NP, PP, AdvP and S (or IP). The sister of C, its complement, would be either S (or IP) or CP when more than one ná appears in the same sentence. Figure 2 is a model of this proposed analysis applied to example (35) with multiple instances of ná.

Figure 2:

Structure of example (35).

In examples where ná is followed by a term, that term is analyzed as a non-verbal predicate with an unspoken subject. An existential clause consisting of a single noun phrase or adjective seems plausible since Barayin has both non-verbal predicates (Lovestrand 2012: 204-210) and clauses with no overt subject. In example (4), ‘She knows na child’, and similar examples, the single word following ná (e.g., ‘child’) would then have to be interpreted as having an existential predicative function (i.e., ‘It is her child.’). This structure is shows in Figure 3.

Figure 3:

Structure of example (4).

It is interesting to note that in this proposed analysis there is a mismatch between the syntactic structure and the prosodic and semantic structures. The marker ná forms a tighter syntactic constituent with the following material than the preceding, even though it forms a prosodic constituent with the preceding material, and its meaning might also be said to scope leftward (cf. Cysouw 2005).

3.1 Marked topics

Recall that topic in this article is defined as “what the sentence is about”, and that it is generally the case in Barayin that the subject of a clause is also the topic. However, in certain cases, the topic is marked by ná. Topic has always been considered a part of the concept of background (Section 1.3). Presenting a topic as background gives the addressee the context in which the following information is relevant, making it easier for the proposition to be interpreted. Backgrounding serves as a way to signal that a non-subject is the topic, or that a subject is a new or contrastive topic.

In example (36), the hyena runs back to the group of animals to report on what he has just learned about the human. The hyena is giving information about the human to the other animals. The direct quote in (36b) begins with the noun phrase “person” followed by ná and co-referenced by a direct object suffix. Since the human is both the topic and the direct object, it is marked by ná. Otherwise the subject would be the topic by default.

In some works on similar particles in other Chadic languages, constructions containing a marked sentence-initial term, like example (36b), are given a free translation beginning with “As for⋯”. In general, the free translations I give are meant to be the English equivalent of the French translation given by the Barayin speaker who translated the text. My intuition is that, in many instances, the “As for...” translation would be a misinterpretation of the information structure. Chafe (1976: 49) analyzes the “As for...” construction in English is an example of what he calls “focus of contrast” (i.e., contrastive focus), and not the equivalent of what he calls “topic” (here called background). A reviewer suggests that “As for...” constructions could also be interpreted as a case of contrastive topic, depending on the context. In either case, the “As for...” English sentences are an appropriate free translation in some, but not all uses of the marker ná following a noun phrase in Barayin.

Example (37) is from another story where two pairs of animals are at odds because one pair ate a mat they should not have eaten, and they fear what consequences may come. After referring to the mat, they ask the other pair what they will say once the group arrives at their destination. In response, the innocent pair make a comment about their mat (which they did not eat). The pair of transgressors react to this by starting a fight. In order to make the mat the topic of their response, it is introduced as a sentence-initial constituent followed by ná in example (37c). The mat is understood to be the patient/object of the following clause, but (unlike example (36)) there is no co-referential pronominal element in the following clause. The role of the mat in the following clause is inferred by the semantics and the gap in the object position.

Since subjects are by default the topic, they do not need to be morphosyntactically marked for this function. However, if a subject is new in the discourse (or not the topic of the previous sentence), it may be followed by ná. Cross-linguistically it is not surprising to find that new topics are morphosyntactically marked (Givón 2001: 254). In example (38), from the Carnivores narrative, the scene switches from a conversation between the animals about the man as they wonder how he will be able to hunt (example (38a)), to the activity of the man (example (38b)). At this point in the narrative, the subject is marked with ná. Following ná, there is no overt subject. Note that in the next sentence with the same subject and the same topic, the subject is omitted altogether (example (38c)).

A similar construction occurs in example (39) from the same narrative. There is a shift in the discourse from the hyena’s thoughts (as he watches the man hunt) to the actions of the hyena (when he decides to return to the other animals to report what he has seen).

Another context where topical subjects are marked by ná is in an identificational construction of the form NP ná NP, where the first NP is the subject and the second is the predicate. This construction is discussed in Section 3.6.

An adjunct can also be marked as a topic in this way. One monologue is a response to the speaker being asked about what she did yesterday. The first sentence, example (40), begins with a ná-marked adverb ‘yesterday’ which refers to both the wider discourse topic, as well as the topic of the sentence.

A topical noun phrase marked by ná does not necessarily have any grammatical function in the following proposition. As described in Section2.3, the noun phrase in example (41) (repeated from example (26)) is not modified by the following adjective, i.e., it is not the subject of the adjectival predicate. Rather, this noun phrase refers more generally to the type of situation under discussion. The term following ná (a non-verbal predicate with an omitted subject) comments that this type of situation is difficult.

3.2 Vocative

In most cases in the corpus, a pronoun, noun or proper noun in reported speech that is co-referential with the addressee is not marked by any particle. However, in a few cases a vocative element referring to the addressee occurs in a sentence-initial position marked by ná, as in example (42b).

When vocatives are marked by ná in the examples found in the corpus, the addressee also has some role in the following clause (e.g., possessor of the subject ‘mat’ in example (42b)). However, it is possible to elicit a sentence like example (43) in which a vocative noun phrase marked by ná has no role in the following clause.

The use of ná following vocatives contrasts with the background marker lá in Ewe. Ameka (1991: 155) notes that lá in Ewe cannot follow vocatives. Ameka explains this fact in Ewe by claiming that vocatives are inherently not background information: “Vocatives cannot be said to constitute a setting for the rest of the utterance... This confirms the view that the terminal particles mark background information in a clause.” There are several possible approaches to understanding this discrepancy. In a linguistic relativity approach, one might postulate that the concept of background is conceptually different for speakers of different languages and cultures. A second approach would be to analyze the vocative use of ná in Barayin as an additional sense or function. In other words, ná is polysemous in Barayin. In either of those analyses it would be expected that ná would occur with essentially all vocatives. However, the marker ná is only used with a small percentage of vocatives. A third, more plausible approach would be to assume that there are some rare cases in which vocatives can also be topics, and that it is precisely when the topic is co-referential with the addressee that a vocative can be marked by a background marker. In this sense, it would be assumed that in example (43), Moussa is not only the person being addressed, but is also somehow the topic. For example, it is because of something Moussa did that the speaker is leaving.

3.3 Ordinal and temporal discourse information

Sentence-initial adverbial phrases marked by ná normally have a function of marking temporal or ordinal progression in a narrative. This use of ná is similar to what Ameka (1991) describes as marking “connectives” in discourse. Ordinal and temporal discourse information is background information in that it serves the purpose of helping the addressee process the following preposition by placing into its temporal context in the narrative.

For example, part of the Carnivores narrative involves each of the characters taking turns to hunt food for the group. Throughout this part of the text, most of the phrases used for ordinal numbering, such as those in examples (44), (45) and (46), are in a sentence-initial position marked by ná.

It is not the case that all such ordinal expressions must necessarily be followed by ná. As mentioned in Section 1.2, an adjunct can also be in a clause-internal pre-subject position without being marked by ná. In the same story as examples (44), (45) and (46), the first and the fifth in the series of animals hunting begin with an ordinal expression without the marker ná, as seen in example (47). The semantic content of ordinal expression in this context already suggests that it is background information. It can be (redundantly) marked as background for clarity, but it does not necessarily need to be marked.

In a similar construction in example (48b), a temporal adverbial (prepositional phrase) in a sentence-initial position indicating the temporal progression of the storyline is marked with ná.

Again, adjuncts can also occur in a pre-subject position without the marker ná. This can be seen in example (49) where an identical adverbial phrase appears in a sentence-initial position without the marker ná.

3.4 Conditional (if/when) clause

Part of the motivation for the concept of background is to describe grammatical marking that is used for both topics and conditional clauses. Sentence-initial conditional clauses are background information in that they serve the purpose of giving a context for interpreting the following proposition. When the marker ná occurs between two finite clauses, the preceding clause is often marked by the clause-initial subordinator to. The conjunction to marks subordinate clauses of either hypothetical ‘if’ or sequential ‘when’ meaning. It is common in Chadic languages for the same word to allow both conditional and temporal interpretations (Frajzyngier 1996: 313, 327). When the conditional/sequential clause (protasis) precedes the main clause (apodosis), it may be followed by ná, as in example (50) and (51).

It is not the case that sentence-initial conditional/sequential clauses are always followed by ná. In example (52) and (53), the conditional clause is not followed by ná. Since conditional clauses are already marked by the clause-initial to, it is clear that they are background information even when ná is absent. Like the use of ná with temporal and ordinal markers (Section 3.3), the use of ná with conditional clauses is optional because conditional clauses are inherently background information.

3.5 Other finite background clauses

The use of the marker ná between clauses is not restricted to clauses marked by to. The marker ná can also follow an otherwise unmarked finite clause. The temporal relationship between a finite ná-marked clause and the following clause can generally be predicted from the TAM marking on the verb in the ná-marked clause, removing the need for temporal conjunctions like ‘while’ and ‘then’. If the verb in the ná-marked clause has perfect marking, it will have an anterior (‘having done X then Y’) reading. If the verb in the ná-marked clause has imperfective marking, it will normally have a simultaneous reading (‘while X, Y’). The perfect-marked ‘then’ clauses typically contain repeated information (see tail-head linkage in Section 3.8) which does not advance the progression of the text, but repeats the temporal or narrative context for the proposition following ná. Simultaneous ‘while’ clauses can carry new information, but this new information serves to set the stage for the more salient storyline event in the following proposition.

In example (54b), the clause preceding ná has a sequential reading similar to the to-marked clause in example (50). The action described by the verb ‘reach/arrive’ with a perfect suffix is understood to be completed before the action described by the following clause begins.

In contrast, when the verb of a ná-marked clause takes the imperfective TAM suffix, the most likely interpretation will be that the event predicated in the clause preceding ná is ongoing during the action or state expressed by the second clause in the proposition-ná-proposition construction. This use of imperfective aspect to express simultaneity is a common feature of background information in a narrative (Givón 2001: 339). In example (55a), the dialogue between the four main characters ends, and example (55b) follows with the progression of the narration. The first clause in example (55b) (preceding ná) has an imperfective verb, and the action described by the verb of this clause (‘sleeping’) is ongoing while the more salient action described by the second verb (‘getting up’) occurs.

A similar construction occurs in example (56c) from a different story. The verb of the clause preceded by ná has an imperfective TAM suffix, and describes a state that is ongoing throughout the action described by the following clause (example (56d)).

In this way, the interaction of ná with tense-aspect marking has a function similar to that of temporal conjunctions like ‘while’ and ‘then’. Such conjunctions are generally not used in Barayin, with the exception of loanwords from Chadian Arabic.

3.6 Maximal backgrounding (Presupposition-Focus)

Barayin does not have a dedicated focus marker with scope over a noun phrase or similar constituent. One way of expressing focus is through a structure in which a single term follows the background marker ná (proposition-ná-term or term-ná-term). The use of this structure in a focus context is what Jacob (2010) calls “indirect focus marking”, and what Güldemann (2016) calls “maximal backgrounding” and “indirect focalization”. “The crucial requirement for backgrounding to assume the central role for focalization is that it is MAXIMAL in the sense that it removes all but one potential focus host from the assertion domain” (Güldemann 2016: 577, emphasis in original).

Interrogative sentences with an interrogative pronoun inherently involve focus on the question word, and the rest of the utterance is pragmatically presupposed (Lambrecht 1994: 283). Two examples of this were given in Section 2.4, one of which is repeated in example (57). All of the information before ná is background or presupposed, and the single question word after ná is in focus.

One other place where maximal backgrounding occurs in the corpus is in reported speech. In one type of reported speech, the verb of speech or quotative marker is followed by a demonstrative gi which is in a cataphoric relationship of apposition with the following clause of reported speech. This can be seen in example (58b). A similar construction is seen in example (58c), however, in this example, the marker ná separates the cataphoric demonstrative from the rest of the clause in a proposition-ná-term structure. The explanation for this is that example (58c) is a response to the question in example (58a): ‘What will you say?’. Thus the complement of the verb ‘say’ in example (58c) is in focus in the response to the question.

Although it rarely occurs in the corpus, it is possible to construct other types of declarative sentences of the same syntactic structure and information structure. Similar examples have been documented in several Central Chadic languages (e.g., Buwal (Viljoen 2015: 29), Muyang (Smith 2003: 4), Mbuko (Gravina 2003: 8), Zulgo (Haller and Watters 1984: 38), and Mofu-Gudur (Hollingsworth 1985: 5)). In example (59) (repeated from Section 2.4), the speaker understood there to be contrastive focus on the utterance-final noun phrase following the marker ná. The French equivalent given was Il ne mange que la viande. In other words, suu ‘meat’ is selected as the object of teyi ‘eat’, in contrast to anything else in the set of possible things to eat in that context.

In example (60), the marker ná separates an infinitival (nominalized) verbal complement phrase from the rest of the proposition. The interpretation is similar. There is contrastive focus on the complement of the verb ‘know’, namely the infinitival verb phrase ‘making boule’. She knows how to prepare boule, but she does not know how to do other things.

A final example of maximal backgrounding is found in identificational sentences. Identificational sentences equate a pronominal demonstrative with a noun phrase, such as “That is Joe Smith” (Higgins, 1973; Heller and Wolter, 2008; Moltmann, 2013). This construction is used for the purpose of giving the identity of a particular (known) referent. It could be the response to a question such as “Who is that?” or “What is this?” In the identificational sentence in Barayin, the demonstrative pronoun consists of a subject proclitic followed by an adnominal demonstrative. In examples (61) and (62), the marker ná follows the subject-demonstrative pronominal. This is followed by a noun phrase giving the identity of the subject. The explanation for the use of ná in this structure is that the pronominal element is presupposed or background information, and the constituent following ná is in focus, perhaps in response to a question about the identity of the subject.

The pair of examples (63) and (64) show that, while focus information can occur following ná, it cannot occur in the constituent preceding ná. The identificational construction (maximal backgrounding) in example (63) would be a natural way to identify someone as the chief when presenting a group of people one at a time. That is, in a context where the referents are already given, and the identity is the new information. In contrast, in example (64), the context is that someone has asked about the identity of the chief. In this context, the subject pronominal is the answer to a question (it is in focus), and it cannot be followed by ná. Likewise interrogative words cannot be placed on their own before ná. In Barayin, it is not possible to place focused items before the marker ná. The same is true of the background marker in Ewe (Ameka 1991: 152–153) and in Zulgo (Haller and Watters 1984: 29–30).

In identificational constructions, the pronominal preceding ná is not only presupposed, but is also the topic. Identificational constructions in Barayin are both topic-comment and presupposition-focus. In other words, the information structure of an identificational construction is topic-ná-focus.

3.7 General backgrounding of previous discourse

The use of ná in a sentence-initial position is quite rare, only occurring twice in the corpus. These two cases are shown in examples (31) and (32) in Section 2.5. The limited data makes it difficult to precisely describe the function of the sentence-initial use of ná. Viljoen (2015: 46) states that when a similar discourse particle occurs in a sentence-initial position in the Central Chadic language Buwal, it does so “in order to give prominence to a theme-line event. It also indicates that the previous information is backgrounded with respect to what follows.” The sentence-initial ná in example (31) could plausibly be giving “prominence” to the following clause, but the context does not give any satisfactory reasons why this clause should be particularly prominent in the narrative. In example (32), the clause following the sentence-initial ná is the final clause of the narrative–-a postscript signaling that the narrator has finished her story. There is no reason to think of this sentence as “prominent”. At this point, the most that can be said about the rare use of sentence-intial ná is that it does not indicate any close pragmatic or logical connection with the preceding clause or term. It could plausibly be thought of as indicating that the reason for the following sentence is explained by the general context of the preceding discourse. This would clearly explain its use in the final sentence of the narrative in example (32), and could plausibly be applied to example (31) as well.

3.8 Tail-head linkage and point of departure

When the marker ná follows an element repeated from the end of the preceding sentence this creates tail-head linkage. Tail-head linkage is a structure where “the tail of one sentence⋯ is recapitulated as the head or the beginning of the following sentence” (Longacre and Hwang 2012: 7). This pattern can be used as a discourse strategy for showing the continuity or progression of a sequence of sentences in a text. The repeated information serves as background for the following proposition. This discourse function is seen not only in a term-ná-proposition construction, but also in a proposition-ná-proposition construction.

Example (65) is part of an oral history of the settlement of Barayin territory. The narrator repeatedly states that the travelers arrived in a village, and then repeats the name of that village with the marker ná at the beginning of the next sentence describing their move to the next new village. Note that all of the examples in (65) are sequential in the original text, one following immediately after the other with no intervening material.

Example (66) is part of the one procedural text in the corpus. Step-by-step directions are given to walk from one part of Mongo to another. The marker ná often follows constituents referring to landmarks that were given in the previous sentence (in prepositional phrases and noun phrases). The main clause then explains the action to take once having arrived at the landmark, as is done with the Alay market in example (66).

In the same text the marker ná also follows finite clauses (proposition-ná-proposition) that repeat the verb from the previous sentence. The verb ‘ask’ which appears in a future tense construction in example (67a) is repeated in example (67b) with a perfect TAM suffix.

In examples (68) and (69), the clause marked by ná does not repeat verbatim the verb of the previous clause, but the clause does provide an obvious semantic link or anchor. For this reason, they are not cases of tail-head linkage, but more general “points of departure” which have a similar discourse function (e.g., Lambrecht 1994: 44, 51; Levinsohn 2012: 40; Weil 1844: 25).