Feature GB264: Is there a polar interrogative particle that most commonly occurs neither clause-initially nor clause-finally?

Patrons: Jeremy Collins and Jay Latarche

Description ⇫

Summary

Is there a particle that is dedicated to marking questions that ask for the equivalent of a 'yes’ or 'no’ answer (as opposed to content questions) that most commonly occurs in the middle of the clause, neither initially nor finally? (definition from Dryer 2013b).

Dryer (2013a) distinguishes neutral questions from leading questions, and this feature in Grambank concerns neutral questions:

"Many languages have question particles or expressions that indicate that the question is a leading question, one where the speaker has an expectation as to what the answer will be. English, for example, employs what are called "tag-questions" for this purpose, illustrated in (13a), which differ from the neutral question form illustrated in (13b) in that its form indicates that the speaker expects a ‘yes’ answer.

13a. You’re planning to go to the beach, aren’t you?

13b. Are you planning to go to the beach?"

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if polar questions can contain a particle that occurs in the clause in a place that is neither at the beginning nor the end, that is dedicated to marking questions, and that is not bound to other words.
  2. Code 0 if polar questions can contain only clause-initial or clause-final particles dedicated to marking questions.
  3. Code 0 if polar questions are not marked by particles dedicated to marking questions.
  4. Code ? if polar interrogation is not well described for the language or if not enough examples of polar interrogation are given.

Examples

Ainu (ISO 639-3: ain, Glottolog: ainu1240)

Coded 1. "The interrogative particle /he/ appears in a clause-medial (pre-verbal) position." (Tamura 2000: 140-141)

taanpe     he   ta   ne  a,    tanike   he  ta   ne  a?
this-thing Q    EMPH COP EMPH, this-one Q   EMPH COP EMPH
‘Is it this one, or this one?’ (Tamura 2000: 140)

Kedang (ISO 639-3: ksx, Glottolog: keda1252)

Coded 0. A clause-final question marker wai is used (Samely 1991: 82, 84).

Pèu   ote  èru=ne    wai?
mango DEI  sweet=3SG Q
‘Is that mango sweet?’ (Samely 1991: 84)

Further reading

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Position of Polar Question Particles. In Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Polar Questions. In Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

References

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.

Samely, Ursula. 1991. Kedang (Eastern Indonesia): Some aspects of its grammar. (Forum phoneticum, 46.) Hamburg: Helmut Buske.

Tamura, Suzuko. 2000. The Ainu language. (ICHEL Linguistic Studies, 2.) Tokyo: Sanseido.


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0 absent 1561
1 present 204
? Not known 466
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Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment