The Cartography of Focus and Interrogative Projections in Ǹjò-Kóo

Abstract

Researches on cartography have made universal predictions on the hierarchies of functional projections in language. Based on this assumption, the structural maps established by Rizzi (1997, 2001b) for the left-peripheral elements suggest very strongly that Interrogative dominates Focus. Nevertheless, a straight-jacket adoption of this proposed hierarchical order to account for these left-peripheral projections in Ǹjò-Kóo would be counterintuitive. Therefore, leaning on empirical and theoretical evidence, the paper calls to question the universality of the cartographers’ claim, and argues that the opposite of the view is true of Ǹjò-Kóo. The paper adopts fieldwork method for data elicitation and descriptive approach as well as minimalist program for analysis of data. Data used in this study were elicited from purposively selected native speakers based on language proficiency. Data were acquired with syntactic checklist and structured interviews, and were subjected to interlinear and qualitative analysis.