Communicative strategies and correlative construction in Kla-Dan and other South Mande languages.

This paper deals with typologically unusual syntactic construction, which is characteristic of Southern Mande languages (Mande > Niger-Congo). It discusses a construction with embedded correlative clause, which can occupy positions reserved for topic: position of adjunct to the fi nite clause (clause-initial position), adjunct to the postpositional phrase and adjunct to the verb phrase. Existence of such a construction can be explained by two facts: clause-level adjunction of postpositional phrases and generalizing positions available for topicalized NP to correlative clauses. We try to fi nd a diachronic relationship between topicalized NP and correlative clauses in Kla-Dan, that can contribute to the typology of diachronic processes concerning mechanisms of topicalization and correlativization.