Not only ‘only’, but ‘too’, too: Alternative-sensitive Particles in Bura

Abstract

This article discusses the syntactic and semantic behaviour of alternative-sensitive particles in Bura (Central-Chadic, Afro-Asiatic), a tone language spoken by about 250.000 speakers in Northeastern Nigeria. The observed findings help to evaluate a number of claims on the syntactic and semantic nature of alternative-sensitive particles, which have been made largely on the basis of European languages.