Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Detail #25: Interrogatives and verbs

I have been thinking about very simple interrogative systems, something along these lines:


  • one interrogative particle, which I for now will call Q (from "question")
  • some kind of verbal marking that has to do with some notion of definiteness, with more than two degrees
The combination of Q and fully indefinite correlates with wh-interrogatives, Q and incomplete indefiniteness and a noun correlates with wh-interrogatives as determiners, finally Q and complete definiteness correlates to yes/no-questions. Q before a noun with full definiteness 
"Q came.indef here" - "Who came here?"
"Q came.def here" - "Did someone come here?"
"Q he came.indef here" - "Did he come here?"
"Q weather.½def is it?" - "What weather is it?"
Some verbs would have a specific, likely interpretation, so if there's a verb for weather conditions in general, no marking beyond Q would be triggered, and the same may go with nouns. Of course, the definiteness could be marked on nouns as well.

This definiteness-marking on verbs could possibly be used for aspect or intensity or something with non-interrogatives, thus removing that distinction in interrogative sentences. I figure this would make it unlikely that weak orders would be phrased as questions.

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