Somali discontinuous coordinate structures with a focus on conjunct hyperbaton in poetry

Abstract Noun phrase coordination in Somali is expressed by the conjunction iyo to create a single coordinate noun phrase. This is well documented. What has not been documented are instances of the conjunction iyo without a conjunct immediately adjacent to one or the other side of it. In this article I consider such cases. Some are discontinous coordinate constructions in which the conjunct following iyo is not present immediately after the conjunction but occurs later, with other words intervening. I suggest two main types of such cases: conjunct hyperbaton and insertion of an adverbial or discourse marker. Another use of iyo , one in which there is no conjunct immediately before the conjunction, and only one immediately following it at the end of a sentence, is also discussed. This is the case of afterthought , and I suggest that these cases occur only at the end of a main clause. The main focus of the article is on conjunct hyperbaton, which I suggest only occurs in poetry. Some implications of this are discussed in the final section with respect to the Coordinate Structure Constraint (Ross, 1967) as well as aesthetics.