This feature deals with the presence or absence of a construction where the only difference between the interrogative and the declarative is marked by tone. Please note that tone is the focus here, not intonation. Tonal marking is bound to a certain position in the clause (e.g. the final syllable, or a certain constituent). Intonation concerns the whole clause and will have a variation in pitch across sentences and phrases.
1) Determine if there is lexical or grammatical tone in the language (other than for polar interrogation) 2) if so, and if one of the words in a declarative sentence can change its tone to change the sentence into a polar question then code 1.
Afar (ISO 639-3: aar, Glottolog: afar1241) Coded 1:
"Consultative can be derived as a question form of subjunctive in which an underlying o is not raised to u because of the addition of the question length and tone marker." (Bliese 1977: 148–151)
’ab-u ‘that I do it’ (subjunctive from ab’aa-o) a’b-oô ‘shall I do it?’ (consultative from ab’aa-oô) (Bliese 1977: 149)
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.
Bliese, Loren Frecerick. 1977. A generative grammar study of Afar. Arlington: University of Texas. (Doctoral dissertation.)
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| 0 | absent | 1635 | |
| 1 | present | 83 | |
| ? | Not known | 440 |
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