function and history of a Dogon pre-verbal particle expressing location and focus

What is it about?

The Dogon "existential" particle originated as a discourse-definite 'there' adverb but developed into an existential (as in the 'X has Y' construction), and became involved in the focalization system.

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Why is it important?

Shows that an ancestral 'there' particle can evolve in sharply different ways in different language families. For example, while the Dogon existential has some similarity to English [there] in [there is/are …], the Dogon particle is also regular in the 'X have Y' construction.