Information Structure in Ghanaian Sign Language

Abstract

This research explores how information structure is expressed in Ghanaian Sign Language, focusing on the concepts of focus and topic, along with their associated syntactic and prosodic markers and interpretations. Regarding focus, the study shows that both arguments and predicates can express focus narrowly or broadly, either in canonical or non-canonical forms. In canon ical positions, these elements remain unmarked—except for the subject, which is marked by the reb prosodic marker. In non-canonical positions, focus constituents are prosodically marked, with the subject again being an exception. The analysis identifies three primary syntactic strategies for marking focus in Ghanaian Sign Language: (i) Doubling, (ii) Ellipsis, and (iii) Movement. The movement strategy is described as opaque, given the difficulty in determining its precise motivation and the directionality of constituent shifts. Semantically, Ghanaian Sign Language distinguishes between two types of focus constructions: (i) Information focus and (ii) Contrastive focus, following the framework proposed by Kiss (1998). Con structions not inferable from the discourse context are classified as information focus, while those presupposed by the context are treated as contrastive focus. With respect to topic, the study adopts both the aboutness approach (Reinhart 1981) and the scene-setting approach (Chafe 1976, Sze 2011), showing that top ics are structurally projected at the left periphery and separated from the clause by prosodic markers—both manual andnon-manual. GhanaianSignLanguageallows for the merging of two topics at the left periphery, whether of the same or differ ent types. Although topics in Ghanaian Sign Language are generally presupposed from the discourse context, they can be distinguished through the use of restricted propositions, which apply specifically to scene-setting topics.