Feature GB326: Do (nominal) content interrogatives normally or frequently occur in situ?

Patrons: Hannah J. Haynie

Description ⇫

Summary

Is there a commonly used content question construction in which the interrogative pronoun or NP (e.g. English who or which one) occurs in the normal position for a non-interrogative NP in the same participant role (i.e. ‘in situ’)? Many languages usually place the wh-constituent in situ (e.g. The man took what?; cf. The man took an umbrella.), while others require wh-constituents to occur in a specific position (e.g. clause-initially) regardless of the usual position of the corresponding non-interrogative NP (e.g. English What did the man take?). Here we are interested in identifying languages that frequently or generally use an interrogative construction with nominal wh-constituents in situ. This question should be coded 1 if questions formed with in situ interrogatives are pragmatically unmarked and are used commonly (e.g. not only in restrictive contexts such as echo questions or constructions with multiple interrogatives).

Procedure

  1. Identify the constructions used for content questions, and determine which are commonly used and pragmatically unmarked (e.g. exclude echo questions, constructions with multiple interrogative constituents).
  2. Identify the constituent order(s) that occur in non-interrogative clauses (i.e. declarative transitive and intransitive clauses).
  3. If, in any common construction identified in step 1, nominal wh-constituents (e.g. ‘who’, ‘which one’) occur in the same position(s) identified in step 2 for non-interrogative NPs with the same participant role (i.e. in situ), code 1.
  4. If, in all common constructions identified in step 1, nominal wh-constituents occur in a fixed position (e.g. clause-initial) that does not always correspond to the position of a non-interrogative NP with the same participant role, code 0.
  5. If word order is described as free or flexible and examples suggest that nominal wh-constituents can occur in the same positions as non-interrogative NPs with the same participant roles, code 1.
  6. If word order is described as free or flexible but it is unclear from descriptions and examples whether nominal wh-constituents occur in a special position rather than in situ, code ? and provide a comment.
  7. If there are no nominal wh-constituents (e.g. where wh-verbs are used instead), code 0 and provide a comment.
  8. If there is insufficient evidence to identify the common, pragmatically unmarked content question construction(s), code ? and provide a comment.

Examples

Second Mesa (ISO 639-3: hop, Glottolog: seco1242)

In the Hopi language of Second Mesa, question words can occur either in situ or in a fronted position, as shown below (Jeanne 1978: 178-179):

ya  ʔɨm  haki-y   wɨvaʔta
Q   you  who-OBL  hit
‘Whom did you hit?’ (wh-in situ)

ya  haki-y   ʔɨm  wɨvaʔta
Q   who-OBL  you  hit
‘Whom did you hit?’ (wh-fronted)

Fronting is entirely optional, and neither of these constructions is pragmatically marked or restricted in use. Because the wh-in situ content question construction is commonly used and pragmatically unmarked, it triggers a 1 value for this feature for Second Mesa.

Canichana (ISO 639-3: caz, Glottolog: cani1243)

According to Crevels (2012: 443), interrogative pronouns in Canichana always occur in clause-initial position, as in the example below:

nacu  een-ariva
what  2SG-want
‘What do you want?’ 
(Cardús 1886: 317, as cited in Crevels 2012)

Canichana is coded 0, as Canichana uses (S)VO word order in the corresponding non-interrogative constructions and the uniformly clause-initial wh-pronouns in the common interrogative construction thus cannot be considered to be in situ (Crevels 2012: 443).

English (ISO 639-3: eng, Glottolog: stan1293)

The standard content interrogative construction in English obligatorily places the wh-constituent in a clause initial position (e.g. What did the man take?). However, it is also possible to leave the wh-constituent in the same position that a non-interrogative NP with the same participant role would occur, accompanied by a special intonational pattern (e.g. *The man took what?). However, the wh-in situ question construction in English is used for echo questions or when multiple wh-constituents occur (e.g. Who took what*?), and is not the general, frequently used interrogative construction in the language. Therefore, English is coded 0.

Further reading

Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 1991. On the typology of wh-questions. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Watanabe, Akira. 1991. Wh-in situ languages. In Mark Baltin & Chris Collins (eds), The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, 203–225. Oxford: Blackwell.

References

Crevels, Mily. 2012. Canichana. In Mily Crevels & Pieter Muysken (eds), Amazonía, 415–449. La Paz: Plural Editores.

Jeanne, Leanne M. 1978. Aspects of Hopi grammar. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Doctoral dissertation.)


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0 absent 810
1 present 941
? Not known 431
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Values ⇫

Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment