Polar Questions Research Articles

Lagdelt indholdsstruktur i selvstændige ytringer og direkte og indirekte ytringsgengivelse

Based in Danish Functionel Linguistics, this article presents a unified analysis of semantic similarities and differences between i) the Danish main-clause types declarative, interrogative and imperative, which are argued to code resp. assertions, polar questions and directive speech acts, and ii) independent main clauses and the two types of clauses – dependent main clauses and complement clauses – which are used to report utterances directly and indirectly, respectively. It is argued i) that independent main clauses possess the layers illocutionary neustic, illocutionary tropic, state-of-affairs, and – in the case of declaratives and interrogatives – proposition, ii) that dependent main clauses lack an illocutionary neustic, and iii) that complement clauses in addition lack an illocutionary tropic.

Language and bodily resources: ‘Response packages’ in response to polar questions in English

In this paper, using English conversational data, we examine type-conforming responses (Raymond, 2003) to polar (yes/no) interrogatives, and find that such responses show recurrent patterns in terms of their linguistic and bodily production. Specifically we show that these type-conforming responses often occur in sync with bodily-visible movements to form units that we call ‘type-conforming response packages’, or ‘response packages’ for short.

Remind-Me Presuppositions and Speech-Act Decomposition: Evidence from Particles in Questions

In this article, we investigate questions like What is your name again?, which presuppose that the answer was already made common-ground knowledge in the past ( Sauerland 2006 ). We call this a remind-me presupposition. While repetitive particles can trigger a remind-me presupposition in German and English, Japanese uses a specialized particle kke to bring about such a presupposition. We argue for an account of remind-me presuppositions based on syntactic decomposition of the question speech-act into an imperative part and a make-it-known part. On this account, the repetitive particles take scope between the two parts of the decomposed question speech-act. The proposal correctly predicts how both particles interact syntactically with the periphery of the clause in slightly different ways. The interaction with polar questions corroborates our proposal that the decomposed question speech-act parts are syntactically projected parts of the question structure. Our data therefore corroborate a syntactic representation of aspects of speech-acts.

Types of polar questions in Javanese

Types of polar questions in Javanese

-Based on Korean Vernacular Letters-

This study intended to examine the change, distribution, expansion, and extinction of the ‘hara’ style interrogative endings of modern Korean based on Korean vernacular letters. ‘nya/nyo’ style and ‘rya/ryo’ style interrogative endings, which were classified as polar(yes-no) question and content question depending on whether they had interrogative word in the middle Korean, were gradually integrated into ‘nya’ and ‘rya’ from the 16th century, and ‘-nya’ and ‘-nyo’ were finally integrated into ‘-nya’ in the beginning of the 17th century and ‘-rya’ and ‘-ryo’, ‘-rya’ in the mid 18th century. ‘-nya’ style interrogative ending has been used without personal distinction from the 17th century as the person restriction gradually disappeared. ‘-n ga/-n go’ and ‘-l ga/-l go’ had been mainly used in indirect questions in the 15th century Korean until 16th century when they were used widely regardless of direct or indirect questions. However, ‘-n da’ was still used exclusively in the sentence led by the second person subject. Meanwhile, ‘-n da’ style interrogative ending began to compete against ‘-nya’ style and ‘-n ga’ style endings in the sentence led by the second person subject. Through this course of competition, ‘-nya’ style and ‘-n ga’ style endings ate into the domain of ‘-n da’ style ending, reducing the distribution of ‘-n da’ style ending. Also, interrogative ending, ‘-n da’, inevitably came into conflict with ‘-n da’ which was used as declarative ending from the 16th century in terms of the form. In this process, ‘-l da’ in ‘-n da’ style disappeared first at the end of the 17th century and ‘-n da’ remained further until it disappeared at the end of 18th century.

Polar questions, social actions and epistemic stance

AbstractThis article describes the relationships between epistemic stance, social actions and form variants of polar questions in Estonian institutional information-seeking dialogues and compares the results with ordinary conversation in English, Dutch, and Danish. Estonian and English use a polarized system where the unknowing stance is formulated by particles and/or inversion, and knowing stance by declaratives and sentence-final markers. Dutch and Danish use an asymmetrical system where unknowing stance uses an inversion and knowing stance uses frequently all question formats. Information-seeking dialogues contain a large number of questions used to establish resources necessary to implement the second-pair-part of the adjacency pair in the interaction.

Where do polar question markers come from?

AbstractOn the basis of present and past developments concerning polar question markers in Estonian and other languages in the Circum-Baltic area, the main sources of interrogative markers are presented: (1) coordination markers: disjunctive, conjunctive and adversative coordination; (2) subordination markers, the source of which is the subordinating conjunction in the case of insubordination of the subordinate clause; (3) epistemic markers, which arise from particles expressing epistemic modality; (4) pronominal markers, which arise from interrogative pronouns and proadverbs in tag questions. Question particles have developed from these same sources in many other languages as well. Typical of the Circum-Baltic languages are disjunctive and conjunctive particles located on the sentence periphery.

Yes/Noquestions in Ẹ́dó: The markers

AbstractThe study examinesyes/noquestions in the Ẹ́dó language with the aim of identifying the morphemes that function asyes/noquestion markers. Relying on primary data generated from a survey, the study proposes that there are five overtyes/noquestion markers in the language. Four of these question markers (té, yí, rà,andkué) have been discussed in the literature, but this study provides a different account of the role oftéin polar questions, and suggests that another morpheme, i.e.,nècan be classified as ayes/noquestion marker. Furthermore, the study reveals that the question markers are homonyms of other lexical and functional words. This has implications for the distribution of the question markers, as the co-occurrence with their homonyms yields unacceptable sentences. The paper describes this constraint on the use of the markers within the framework of Distributed Morphology.

Interrogative clauses in English and the social economics of questions

Communicative interaction may be conceived of as a give and take of information that partners in conversation assign a value to and track carefully. The social value of information gives rise to a complicated microeconomic system in the sense of Levinson (2012) in which asking for information is associated with social costs that speakers try to minimize. Such a social economic model of communication makes two predictions, namely that asking questions should be generally avoided in conversation and that content questions are less likely to be used than yes–no questions, since the former ask for more substantial information. These predictions are tested based on a sample of 4108 tokens of interrogative clauses taken from the International Corpus of English, British Component, that encode various direct and indirect questions. The data offer support for Levinson's model, as polar interrogatives outnumber constituent interrogatives in both direct and indirect uses, especially in the spoken registers. I offer an explanation for the high number of polar interrogatives in indirect uses and also try to motivate the highly skewed distribution of interrogative words using the social economics of questions. There remain problems, though, since the predicted large proportion of tag questions is not supported by the data.

Teething problems? Chinese student interpreters’ performance when interpreting authentic (cross-) examination questions in the legal interpreting classroom

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to introduce new assessment criteria to test the quality of interpreted renditions, based on functionalist approaches to translation theory. Secondly, it aims to test these criteria by analysing the English to Chinese interpreted renditions of authentic legal language undertaken by a small number of student interpreters in an undergraduate legal interpreting course at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. The analysis will test student interpreter performance using the criteria outlined, and will focus on two very common syntactical constructions in Chinese which were used to interpret polar interrogatives and positive/negative declaratives with tag questions. The findings suggest that some of the Chinese constructions used by student interpreters resulted in interpretations which significantly deviated from the original involving loss of illocutionary intent.

On delimiting the space of bias profiles for polar interrogatives

On delimiting the space of bias profiles for polar interrogatives

More on the Categorial Status of (T)àbí in Yorùbá Grammar

Yorùbá language is one of the major languages spoken in Nigeria. The term is also used to refer to the language and the native speakers. As shown in Oyetade, Yorùbá language is spoken in six states that constitute the southwest of Nigeria – Lagos, Ọ̀yọ́, Ọ̀ṣun, Ògùn, Òndó, and Èkìtì. This study investigated the Standard Yorùbá used in the Southwest Nigeria by focusing on the conjunction t(àbí). Findings reveal that there are varieties of Yorùbá language based on the location of the speakers and the state they occupy in Nigeria: Ọ̀yọ́ dialect, Ègbá dialect, Èkìtí dialect, Òndó dialect and Ọ̀wọ̀ dialect to mention a few. Previous scholarly works on Yorùbá grammar show that (t)àbí performs two functions and it is ascribed with two nomenclatures namely conjunction and polar question word. However, this present paper provides another view that is different from the views of the earlier scholars. Findings in this study reveal that t(àbí) is a conjunction in all its positions of occurrence and the researcher argues against its use as a polar question word. It is established in this study among other things that its occurrence at sentence initial position is as a result of ellipsis. The study also maintains that where it appears at sentence medial position, the polar question word has been deleted.

6th international conference on Mars polar science and exploration: Conference summary and five top questions

We provide a historical context of the International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration and summarize the proceedings from the 6th iteration of this meeting. In particular, we identify five key Mars polar science questions based primarily on presentations and discussions at the conference and discuss the overlap between some of those questions. We briefly describe the seven scientific field trips that were offered at the conference, which greatly supplemented conference discussion of Mars polar processes and landforms. We end with suggestions for measurements, modeling, and laboratory and field work that were highlighted during conference discussion as necessary steps to address key knowledge gaps.

West African languages enrich the frequency code: Multi-functional pitch and multi-dimensional prosody in Ikaan polar questions

Cross-linguistically, statements tend to be pronounced with low or falling pitch and questions with high or rising pitch, a form–meaning pairing which has been attributed to the frequency code (Ohala, 1984). In many West African languages, however, questions are marked with a ‘lax’ prosody comprising falling intonation, low tones, lengthening, breathy termination, and open vowels (Rialland, 2007). This paper presents prosody findings from Ikaan (Niger-Congo; ISO 639-3: kcf) and proposes a re-analysis of the West African lax question prosody to integrate it with the frequency code model. The paper shows that the pragmatic functions of statement and polar question are expressed prosodically in Ikaan. Audio recordings of statements and morphosyntactically identical polar questions by six speakers were annotated segmentally, tonally, and for the presence of prosodic question markers. Speakers mark questions by using higher onset pitch, wider drops to final low tones, final breathy voice and voicelessness, final vowel lengthening, vowel insertion, and increased intensity. Breathiness may further contrast with creaky voice and glottal stops in statements. Phonation mode, and the accompanying vowel lengthening and insertion, are argued to indicate friendliness and appeals for collaboration, linking phonation mode to similar functions of higher pitch in the frequency code.

Meaningful questions: The acquisition of auxiliary inversion in a connectionist model of sentence production

Nativist theories have argued that language involves syntactic principles which are unlearnable from the input children receive. A paradigm case of these innate principles is the structure dependence of auxiliary inversion in complex polar questions (Chomsky, 1968, 1975, 1980). Computational approaches have focused on the properties of the input in explaining how children acquire these questions. In contrast, we argue that messages are structured in a way that supports structure dependence in syntax. We demonstrate this approach within a connectionist model of sentence production (Chang, 2009) which learned to generate a range of complex polar questions from a structured message without positive exemplars in the input. The model also generated different types of error in development that were similar in magnitude to those in children (e.g., auxiliary doubling, Ambridge, Rowland, & Pine, 2008; Crain & Nakayama, 1987). Through model comparisons we trace how meaning constraints and linguistic experience interact during the acquisition of auxiliary inversion. Our results suggest that auxiliary inversion rules in English can be acquired without innate syntactic principles, as long as it is assumed that speakers who ask complex questions express messages that are structured into multiple propositions.

Experimental Evidence for the Role of Intonation in Evidential Marking.

This paper investigates the role of intonation in the marking of directly-perceived information in Majorcan Catalan polar questions. We conducted a perception experiment in which a total of 72 participants were introduced to a set of twins who were exposed to different types of evidence for a given p(roposition). One twin inferred p based on direct sensory information (via one of the five senses), while the other had been told that p by a third party, that is, reported information. Participants listened to a set of discourse contexts that ended in critical stimuli with three attested combinations of particle/intonation in this variety of Catalan: (1) polar questions produced with a falling nuclear contour ¡H+L* L%; (2) polar questions headed with the particle que 'that' produced with ¡H+L* L%; and (3) polar questions headed with the particle que and produced with a rise-fall L+H* L%. After hearing the stimulus, participants had to decide which of the twins had uttered the question-the one who inferred a proposition ( p) based on direct sensory information or the one who had been told p by a third party. The results show that listeners very consistently associate the que + L+H* L% combination with inferences drawn from direct sensory evidence as opposed to reported evidence. This shows that particles may work in tandem with intonation to convey the information source. Importantly, we show that intonation is a part of grammar that may be recruited for evidential strategies.

‘No mam. You are heterosexual’: Whose language? Whose sexuality?

This study analyzes phone calls to a Brazilian governmental health helpline. By means of Conversation Analysis and categorization analysis, it investigates a demographic survey at the end of the calls, used to collect information about the caller, including the caller's sexual orientation. What was originally a wh‐question (‘What is your sexual orientation?’) is most frequently transformed by call takers (who conduct the survey) into a polar question (‘Are you heterosexual?’), a format that triggers complex interactional trajectories and activates categorizations that demonstrate ‘in‐action’ heteronormative understandings about gender and sexuality. The analysis reveals the helpline callers’ unfamiliarity with what academics and activists have mostly considered everyday and perhaps universal terminology, and thus calls for more bottom‐up and ecologically valid ways of talking about sexual orientations. This investigation also contributes to questioning the traditional dichotomy of the micro and macro perspectives, demonstrating how situated interactions respond to a wider sociocultural repertoire which makes what is local simultaneously translocal.

Intonation and Evidentiality in Spanish Polar Interrogatives.

Three different nuclear pitch accents can be found in Castilian Spanish polar interrogatives. In addition to the 'canonical' low-rise pattern, there are two marked interrogative contours featuring high-rise and rise-fall pitch accents. The aim of this paper is to explain how each contour contributes to the interpretation of the utterance in which they occur. I argue that this contribution is to be sought at the semantic, not at the pragmatic-illocutionary, attitudinal-level. My proposal is that the low-rise contour is the expression of unspecified sentence polarity (corresponding to the interrogative operator), whereas the two marked contours add indications about the information source-that is, they encode evidential distinctions. The high-rise pattern indicates that the Self is the source of the information; the rise-fall tone indicates that Other is the source. The whole range of pragmatic interpretations that have been described in the literature can be easily accommodated into the present proposal as inferential developments of the encoded meaning together with contextual information. This view has implications for a theory of interrogatives, for the phonology of intonation and for the articulation of the semantics/pragmatics interface.

On the Anaphoric Nature of Particle Responses to the Polar Questions in English and Korean

On the Anaphoric Nature of Particle Responses to the Polar Questions in English and Korean

Segmental cues to intonation of statements and polar questions in whispered, semi-whispered and normal speech modes

This paper examines how acoustic characteristics of vowels and consonants reflect intonational differences between polar questions and statements in Polish whispered, semi-whispered and normal speech modes, with particular focus on the spectral characteristics of voiceless consonants as a function of intonation, and across speech modes. The results reveal significant differences in spectral properties of both utterance-final vowels and consonants across statements and polar questions. Questions have higher vowel intensities and show differences in formant frequencies that vary with speech mode. Regarding the consonants, both fricatives and affricates are produced with higher intensity, spectral peaks at higher frequencies, and higher Centre of Gravity and Spectral Standard Deviation values in questions than in statements. Conversely, skewness and kurtosis are lower in questions than in statements. Some spectral features of sibilants, including spectral slopes, show greater question-statement differences in the whispered speech mode than in other speech modes. The finding that some cues are more pronounced in whispered speech suggests that they may compensate for the absence of fundamental frequency in this mode. Most generally, the study shows that speakers produce intended intonation patterns by varying the type and magnitude of cues depending on speech mode.