The morphosyntax and prosody of topic and focus in Juba Arabic

International audienceThis article will discuss the information structure of Juba Arabic, an Arabic-based pidgincreole spoken in South Sudan. In particular, it will deal with the expression of topic and focus, showing how morphosyntactic and prosodical marking interact in order to yield a system of remarkable complexity. After an overview of the main typological features of Juba Arabic as well as of the data and the methodology used for this study in section 2., section 3. will discuss the expression of discourse-unmarked sentences, dealing in separate subsections with declarative, negative sentences, and questions. The description of the syntactic and prosodic configurations of such unmarked utterances will be taken as a point of reference for the following description of structures that involve formal marking for topic and/or focus. Section 4. will tackle the expression of topic under the rubrics of definite, indefinite argument and frame setting topic. The subsections in 5. will be devoted to focus, showing how as many as three different elements can be used in focus strategies, and depicting the role of the Arabic-derived vocative particle ya in triggering the development of two different separate markers. The final section 6. will summarize our findings and address comparative issues and the possible role of substrate in the discourse strategies of Juba Arabic