Condition, topic and focus in African languages: why conditionals are not topics

Abstract

A general assumption concerning the information structure of conditional sentences is that "conditionals are topics". However, in South Bauchi West languages spoken in Northern Nigeria, as well as in Banda Linda, an Adamawa language spoken in RCA, conditionals share their structure with focus, not topic. This leads us to reconsider the facts and characterizations of conditionals, topic and focus in general. We conclude with a definition of conditionals as a " fictitious assertion "