The expression of information structure in Teke-Kukuya

This chapter introduces the expression of information structure of Teke-Kukuya which is a Bantu language spoken in the Republic of Congo. The author first discusses the canonical word order of the language and what discourse functions it can have. Then the chapter describes the functions and interpretation of a dedicated immediate-before-verb (IBV) focus position that can express various types of focus. Different kinds of topical elements in Kukuya tend to occur in the preverbal domain. Passiveness is expressed via two functional constructions. The language also makes use of cleft constructions to express focus, from which some connections with the IBV focus strategy are observed. In general, the Kukuya language behaves more discourse-configurational.