The expression of information structure in Kirundi

This chapter reports on different linguistic means used in Kirundi to construct informational units in a sentence. We demonstrate that information structure has a fundamental influence on the morphosyntax of Kirundi. Information structure determines the word order to a large degree, with the requirements for topics in the preverbal domain and a final focus position leading to a range of subject inversion constructions. It can also influence the verbal inflection, particularly in verb forms distinguishing the conjoint/disjoint alternation. Other linguistic phenomena linked to information structure such as predicate doubling, the agreeing particle -ó as a topic marker and copular constructions (clefts, pseudoclefts and reverse pseudoclefts) pinpointing the focus interpretation  are also described in this chapter.