Chapter 12: Position of interrogative phrases in content questions

Feature information for this chapter can be found in feature 12.

1. Interrogative phrases

In many languages, in particular in languages with verb-object order, the interrogative phrase (or “wh-phrase”) in content questions is normally or obligatorily fronted, i.e. it occurs in a special initial position in the clause that is different from the position that the corresponding non-interrogative expression would occupy. An example is English:

(1)
a.
(non-interrogative)
The children are playing in the garden.
b.
(interrogative)
Where are the children playing?

In other languages, they can occur in the position in which they would occur in the corresponding declaratives (“in situ”), or in another special position (e.g. a preverbal focus position). An example comes from Bislama, where the object interrogative phrase occurs in the ordinary object position:

(2)
yu
2sg
wantem
want
karem
take
wanem?
what
What do you want to buy?

2. The two types

Here we only distinguish two non-exclusive possibilities: initial (i.e. fronted) and non-initial (i.e. in situ, or in some other non-initial position), largely following Dryer (2005l). About half of the languages allow both possibilities.

exclshrdall
Interrogative phrase initial313566
Interrogative phrase not initial103545
Representation:76

Two examples of initial position are given in (3a-b):

(3)
a.
Wa
what
yu
2sg
waahn
fut
du
do
wid
ins
ih?
3sg.n
What are you going to do with it?
b.
Kósa
what
tu
you
ta-asé?
ipfv-do
What are you doing?

Three examples of non-initial position are given in (4a-c):

(4)
a.
poɖiyaas-ntu
child-loc
taam
also
kii
what
poy
habil
faya?
do
What can the children do also?
b.
Nge
you
me
prf
mona
see
nki?
what
What have you seen?
c.
ta
you
tape
hit
ki?
whom
Whom did you hit?

There may be further word order peculiarities in content questions, as in English, where the subject inverts with some verbs (as in 1b), but these hardly occur in our languages and are not taken into account here.

Note that “initial position” does not necessarily mean absolute initial position. Initial interrogative phrases may be preceded by highlighting particles or copulas in cleft constructions, as in example (5).

(5)
A
foc
wa
what
Jan
John
bai
buy
wid
with
di
det
moni?
money
What did John buy with the money?

For this feature, we consider only interrogative phrases that do not normally occur initially in the clause, because with initially occurring elements (such as subjects), one cannot tell whether they are fronted. In example (6a), the interrogative phrase could be in situ or fronted, and it is only by analogy with (6b), where it is clearly fronted, that we may want to choose an analysis according to which (6a) is fronted as well.

(6)
a.
Kin
who
ki
rel.subj
ciga
arrive.pst
aonti?
yesterday
Who arrived yesterday?
b.
Kin
who
ku
rel.obj
bu
2sg
odja?
see.pst
Who did you see?

It should be noted that in some languages that normally require fronting of interrogative phrases, occurrence of interrogative phrases in situ is possible in special echo questions (i.e. questions that copy part of an immediately preceding declarative sentence), e.g. in Afrikaans and English:

(7)
Jy
you
het
pst
WAT
what
ge-sê?
ptcp-said
You said WHAT?! (Reaction to an utterance like I said that I'll marry him.)

Because of their highly specialized usage, echo questions have been excluded for this feature, so Afrikaans is classified as allowing only fronted interrogative phrases.

3. Languages with both orders

Many languages allow both fronting and in situ occurrence of interrogative phrases. Such languages are Guadeloupean Creole, Lingala and Nigerian Pidgin:

(8)
a.
Ki
which
koté
place
ou
2sg
pst
be
Where were you?
b.
Ou
2sg
pst
ki
which
koté?
place
Where were you?
(9)
a.
wápi
where
a-kend-ákí?
3sg-go-pst
Where did he go?
b.
a-kend-ákí?
3sg-go-pst
wápi?
where
Where did he go?
(10)
a.
Haw
how
mo̱ch
much
mò̱ni
money
dè̱m
3pl.sbj
ge̱t?
have
How much money do they have?
b.
Dè̱m
3pl-sbj
ge̱t
have
haw
how
mo̱ch
much
mò̱ni
money
How much money do they have?

There is often some semantic or pragmatic difference between the two construction types, but apart from echo questions (see above), such differences have been disregarded in our classification. For Bislama, Meyerhoff (2013) reports that in situ position (as in (2) above) is normal, while a question with fronted interrogative phrase is perceived as rude or aggressive. In Cape Verdean Creole of Santiago, in-situ position is especially used when the main verb is ‘be’:

(11)
Kel
that
(kumida)
(food)
la
there
ê
is
di
of
kenha?
whom
Whose is that (food)?

In Creolese, in situ position often occurs with a suggested answer, or when the answer is considered to be obvious:

(12)
yu
you
jraa
draw
om
it
wid
with
wo -
what
charkool?
charcoal
What did you draw it with? Charcoal?

In some languages, different interrogative words behave differently. For instance, in Juba Arabic, wen ‘where?’ is always non-initial, whereas other interrogative pronouns may also be fronted (Manfredi & Petrollino 2013). Similarly, Santome ‘where’ obligatorily occurs in final position, whereas for other interrogative phrases, initial position is more common (Hagemeijer 2013). (This particular case can be explained etymologically, as was borrowed from Edo and is originally an interrogative copula.)

4. Geographical distribution of the types

In general, Atlantic pidgins and creoles show fronting of interrogative phrases, following the European model. In African languages, non-initial position is far more common (cf. Dryer 2005l), and the African pidgins and creoles also tend to show non-initial position (with the obvious exception of Afrikaans). In Asia, too, non-initial position is generally dominant in the indigenous languages, with the exception of Philippine languages, and this is reflected on the APiCS map, too. Thus, the position of interrogative phrases does seem to be susceptible to substrate influence in some areas, while in the Atlantic region the superstrate influence appears to be dominant. This is a puzzling pattern that requires further research.