Locality and restricted A'-probing among the Mabia languages

The idea of restricted A’-probing for the closest DP was originally proposed for `absolutive-only’ extraction cases in Ergative-Absolutive languages (syntactic ergativity) by Aldridge(2004, 2008, 2017), and other subsequent studies. However, recently, the same extraction restrictions have been argued to be present in non-ergative languages such as Turkish and Rejang (see Branan & Erlewine 2024, and some references therein). In other words, the phenomenon of A’-probing for the closest DP is not unique to only ergative languages. It seems to be more general than earlier thought.

In this study, I present novel data from two Mabia (formerly, Gur) languages, Kusaal and Gurene (spoken mainly in Northern Ghana), that exhibit an extraction asymmetry between local subject focus (LSF henceforth) on the one hand, and non-subject focus (both local & non-local) (NSF henceforth) plus non-local subject focus (NLSF henceforth) on the other. I argue that (a) such extraction asymmetry can be attributed to restricted A’-probing for the closest DP, and that (b) the extraction asymmetry is reflected by a distinction in morphological focus marking. I further consider three alternative approaches, and argue that only one out of these alternative approaches looks promising. The other two are faced with some challenges, which I will discuss.