Polarity focus in a cross-dialectal grammar of Coptic Egyptian
Karen De Clercq, Chris Reintges
January 2023 

Coptic Egyptian (CE), the last stage of Ancient Egyptian [mid-3rd–12th c. CE], features a syntactic variant of clitic left-dislocation (CLLD), which involves the doubling of TAM-particles. The possibility for certain TAM-particles to appear in the doubling construction follows from their internal lexical structure, which hence can be analysed in terms of portmanteaus. If the lexical structure of a given TAM-particle consists of a polarity and a focus feature in addition to aspect, mood, and tense features, it can take part in the TAM doubling construction and give rise to verum focus (Höhle 1988) or polarity focus (Poletto 2010, Poletto and Zanuttini 2013, Holmberg 2007). Conversely, if the lexical structure of the TAM-particle lacks a polarity and focus feature, it will not be able to take part in the doubling construction and hence will not give rise to polarity focus. The analysis is couched in Nanosyntax.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/007094 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Quaderni di Lavoro ASIt
keywords:	coptic, (negative) tam portmanteaus, polarity focus, cartography, nanosyntax, morphology, syntax
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