Mono and Bi-clausal Topics in Likpakpaanl

This talk discusses topic constructions in Likpakpaanl, a Mabia language spoken in Northern Ghana. Likpakpaanl has both aboutness (1a) and contrastive topics (1b) (cf. Büring, 2003, 2016; Krifka, 2008). We argue that the left periphery of the Likpakpaanl clausal structure has only one position for an information-structural notion. In other words, topic and focus cannot co-occur in the left periphery of the clause (cf. Rizzi, 1997). We propose mono-clausal and bi-clausal analyses for mà-topics and kàn-topics, respectively. While the former projects a TopP in the left periphery, the latter has a bi-clausal structure. To begin with the mà-topics, we argue that both the topic and mà form a constituent. Consequently, movement to Spec-TopP must affect the entire mà-topic. This behaviour of the topic is identical to focus movement in Likpakpaanl, where le appears to be adjacent to the focused constituent ex-situ focus (see Mursell et al., 2022). Kàn-topics, on the other hand, seem to be bi-clausal. We argue for a bi-clausal structure based on two grounds. First, mà-kàn-topics and focus can co-occur on the left side of the matrix clause. Second, resumptive pronouns suggest a bi-clausal analysis since they only occur if the subject is not part of the clause. On the other hand, in mà-topics, they are absent.