2nd proofs  Zygmunt Frajzyngier References Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1991. he de dicto domain in language. In Approaches to Grammatical- ization, Vol.1 [Typological Studies in Language 19], Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 219–251. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1996. Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence: A Case Study in Chadic [Studies in Language Companion Series 32]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Jasperson, Robert. 1991. hat clauses and other complements. Lingua 83: 133–153. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Shay, Erin. 2003. Explaining Language Structure through Systems Interaction [Typological Studies in Language 55]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haiman, John & hompson Sandra A. (eds). 1988. Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse [Typological Studies in Language 18]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Matthews, Peter. 1997. he Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: OUP. Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geofrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Acknowledgments he present work on Wandala is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Erin Shay and by an award from the Jane and Charles Butcher Foundation. Most of the data were gathered in Cameroon, where I have been hosted over many years by the Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement in Maroua, which has also provided me with much-needed institu- tional and logistic support. I am most grateful to its current director, Dr. Noé Woin, for support during the years 2004–2008. I am most grateful to Erin Shay for the careful reading of this paper, critical and constructive comments, and many suggestions for improvement. Comments by an anonymous reader and by Bernard Caron led me to revise substantially a number of points discussed in this paper. To Marian Safran I am most grateful for the editorial work. Deixis, information structure and clause linkage in Yai‘ Arabic (Yemen) Martine Vanhove LLACAN, Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques – CNRS Several particles in the Arabic variety spoken in the area of Yai‘ (Yemen) show tight recurring links between deixis, informational hierarchy, and syntactic hierarchy, both diachronically and synchronically. In the light of Robert’s (1993, 2000) indings on focusing strategies, these links are discussed in detail for two polyfunctional particles, raΩ, and ta, which can be used, among other things, as deictics, topic markers, focusing particles and clause-linking devices (see Vanhove 1996 & 2004). he present paper shows how, in a language where subordinating constructions and markers are also available, topicalisation and focusing strategies may become the preferred strategies for clause-linking, especially in causal, relative and complement clauses. . Introduction his paper takes the case of the Arabic variety of Yai‘ (Yemen) to discuss a crosslin- guistically recurrent phenomenon, which is analysed in several papers of this volume, namely a type of interclausal dependency, diferent from embedding, subordination, or co-subordination, which is analysed by Robert (this volume) as the “pragmatic dependency of a focused clause on its discursive landmark”. Although dedicated clause linkage markers are not particularly scarce in Yai‘ Arabic, spontaneous speech very frequently makes use of other strategies based on information structure to signal semantic interclausal relations. In spontaneous oral discourse, they may actually be more frequent than the syntactic strategies available for some speciic semantic relations. In this paper I will describe and discuss the various functions of two particles, 1 raΩ and ta, whose origins are respectively a verb meaning ‘see, look’, and a demonstrative. . he data used for this research were collected in the Yai‘ area in Yemen during two ield trips in 1994 and 1998. hey consist of 45 oral traditional tales gathered from ive female speakers aged 20 to 50 and two male speakers aged approximately 40 and 50. Unfortunately I have not been able to go back to Yemen since then and no further data could be gathered or elicited. 2010. Deixis, information structure and clause linkage in Yafi' Arabic (Yemen). Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy. Syntax and Pragmatics. I. Bril (ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins: 333-354.