Jula (or Dyula) is a Manding language (subbranch of the Central West branch of the Mande family) spoken in West Africa. The following data are from the variety spoken in Ivory Coast (Creissels 2021, § 5.2).

Government in this language is left-branching: The subject precedes the auxiliary, the object precedes the verb, the complement precedes the postposition. A verbal clause unmarked for information structure consequently has the main constituent order ‘subject – auxiliary – direct object – verb – other dependents’ ().

The language has two copulas, both of which follow the predicate complement. The copula not at stake here takes an overt subject and a predicate complement. The other copula is lò, an “identificational predicator” which is used if its subject does not appear ().

This predicative formative may be inserted into a sentence like at any position, following enclitically the focal component ().

The order of the focus construction is [ topical material – [ focal component – lò ] – topical material ], where the focal component was the predicate complement of lò in the source construction. Since lò does not allow for the specification of a subject, the origin cannot be a pseudo-cleft construction and must be a cleft-sentence. a looks like an insistent cleft-sentence; but versions #b and #c must be monoclausal because an extrafocal clause cannot be embedded. This is, thus, a fully grammaticalized focus marker. Given its etymology, a biclausal construction must be at the origin of this focus construction, although neither synchronic nor diachronic evidence for such a biclausal construction is available. This grammaticalization process is therefore based on internal reconstruction, including comparison with other Manding languages.

Creissels, Denis 2021, ‘Remarks on the grammaticalization of identificational clefts’. Faits de Langue 52.1: 13-31.