Somali discontinuous coordinate structures with a focus on conjunct hyperbaton in poetry

Noun phrase coordination in Somali is expressed by the conjunction iyo to create a single coordinate noun phrase. This is well documented. What has not been documented are instances of the conjunction iyo without a conjunct immediately adjacent to one or the other side of it. In this article I consider such cases. Some are discontinous coordinate constructions in which the conjunct following iyo is not present immediately after the conjunction but occurs later, with other words intervening. I suggest two main types of such cases: conjunct hyperbaton and insertion of an adverbial or discourse marker. Another use of iyo, one in which there is no conjunct immediately before the conjunction, and only one immediately following it at the end of a sentence, is also discussed. This is the case of afterthought, and I suggest that these cases occur only at the end of a main clause. The main focus of the article is on conjunct hyperbaton, which I suggest only occurs in poetry. Some implications of this are discussed in the final section with respect to the Coordinate Structure Constraint (Ross, 1967) as well as aesthetics.