Feature GB260: Can polar interrogation be indicated by a special word order?

Patrons: Jeremy Collins and Jay Latarche

Description ⇫

Summary

Can a change in word order mark polar questions? In order for a construction to trigger 1, there should be no other marker in the clause that signals polar interrogation, not even lack of finiteness compared to the affirmative. This excludes intonation, which may be different between questions and declarative statements.

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if a polar question can be formed by changing the word order in the clause and nothing else (except for intonation).
  2. Code 0 if a word order change and another marker (such as a question marker on the verb) together mark polar interrogation within the same construction.
  3. Code ? if it is not clear from limited data whether word order marks polar interrogation in the language.

Examples

Parecís (ISO 639-3: pab, Glottolog: pare1272).

Coded 1. Generally, in polar questions, the focused questioned argument is fronted and the verb is clause-final (Brandão 2014: 338).

Further reading

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013a. Position of polar question particles. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013b. Polar questions. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

References

Brandão, Ana Paula Barros. 2014. A reference grammar of Paresi-Haliti (Arawak). Austin: University of Texas. (Doctoral dissertation.)


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Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment