Archival data of the project : split case marking and constituent order variation in East Africa (2017-2023)

This collection contains the archival data of the project "Split case marking and constituent order variation in East Africa (B02)", which is a part of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1252): Prominence in Language. In phase I, the project investigated split ergativity in Tima from a synchronic perspective, paying special attention to topicality, focus, verb semantics and tense/aspect. Subsequently, the project adopted a diachronic perspective on the development of split ergativity, comparing the argument structures of cognate verb roots, as well as the distribution of cognate derivational morphology and prepositions in Tima and Katla/Julut. In phase II, this project further investigates prominence relations in East African languages with different types of split case marking systems that interact with constituent order. The focus is on Tima and Datooga, which mark case on postverbal (but not on preverbal) agents or subjects. Using spoken language corpora, the project identifies the features that trigger differential marking and study their interaction and variability in languages across the region. For a brief introduction to the project, see .