PERGUNTAS DE CONSTITUINTE EM IBIBIO E A TEORIA DE TIPO ORACIONAL: ASPECTOS DA PERIFERIA À ESQUERDA COM ÊNFASE EM FOCO (Wh questions in Ibibio and Theory of Sentence Type – Aspects of the Left Periphery with Emphasis at Focus)

This study examines the Ibibio language data in the form of constituent questioning (Wh questions), aiming to reach an explanatory account of the facts, following the tracks of the Generative Grammar studies. There are two central goals: (i) to provide a morphosyntactic verbal analysis of Ibibio, emphasizing the notion of auxiliary focus; (ii) to show that Ibibio is a "Wh in-situ" language, regarding the universal parameters related to the "Wh movement". This research establishes that the verbal morphology of the language presents affixes of both the flexional and the derivational types; Time and Aspects flexion affixes also exhibit a set of allomorphs involving [+focus]/[-focus]. I.e., Ibibio behaves like many African languages, which present allomorphs attested by the literature to be auxiliary focus ([+focus]). Time and Aspect Ibibio allomorphs [+focus] are mandatory in sentences with questioning of constituents, as well as in relative sentences as in sentences that present affixal marks of Mode or Negation. So, by the parameterization of languages regarding the "Wh movement", the examination of constituent questioning sentences in Ibibio leads to the conclusion that they are "Wh in situ" sentences and also that the movement of those constituents to the left periphery of the sentences cannot be properly described as the "Wh movement"; instead, this movement is due for focus checking.

An ethnographic description of the Ibibio people, emphasizing the social organization of this West African culture, is presented in the first chapter of the dissertation, with the purpose of avoiding that the strictly linguistic information on the Ibibio (those that speak the Ibibio language) remained isolated. (Written in Portuguese).

KEY WORDS: Ibibio Language; Wh-Phrases; Wh-in-Situ Language; Auxiliary Focus; Left Periphery.