FOCUS CONSTRUCTION IN KOLOKUMA

Abstract

This is a descriptive work that discusses focus construction in the Kolokuma Dialect of the Izon Language.  A North Central Ijoid Lect under the Niger-Congo Phylum, spoken in the Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area in Bayelsa State.  The objective of this paper is to examine and describe focus construction in Kolokuma with a view to determining how the focus is realised in the language and the constituents that can be focused.  Exploiting a native speaker’s intuition, data was collected and analysed on Kolokuma through oral interviews.  The study shows that focus in Kolokuma is primarily in-situ, that is, it is realised clause internally. The study also shows that the language encodes focus morphologically, using the particles ‘ki’, ‘ko’ and ‘kiri ki’ as focus markers.  Some of the constituents that can be focused on in the language are the subject NP, the object NP, the object of the preposition NP, and the verb. The particle ‘ko’ is used to lay emphasis on locatives (postpositions of location), while ‘ki’ is used for other prepositions and NPS. ‘Kiri ki’ is used to focus on short pronouns. The verb is the only constituent that is fronted in the language; it is fronted to a pre-verbal position and a copy is left at the construal site.