Focalization process and intonation in Meridional Berber: the case of Tamasheq and Tetserret

Abstract The best-known information structures, focus and topic have already been described for almost all Berber languages. However, intonation in these structures is seldom described in spite of its essential part. In this paper, my aim is to describe the focalization process, focusing on intonation, in Tamasheq, as compared with Tetserret; indeed, the two languages, even if they share some similarities because of they are in constant contact and belong to the same phylum, follow different intonative rules in most occurrences. We will see that, in those two languages, the focalization process is rich, even from a typological point of view, and that, here again, intonation is different from one language to another.