Different questions are signaled by different forms. Intonational questions, particle questions, alternative questions, X-neg-X questions, tag questions, and wh- questions are typically signaled by distinctive intonation, question particles, alternative structures, X-neg-X structures, tags, and wh- phrases, respectively.
Nevertheless, a number of asymmetrical phenomenon is found in the form and meaning of interrogatives.
Distinctive intonation
Terminal rising intonation is a common signaling device of polar questions
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cross-linguistically. In a number of languages, final rising intonation is used both in polar and content questions, e.g. Diola (Atlantic, Niger-Congo; Sapir 1965, Sadock and Zwicky 1985). In Puyuma (Formosan, Austronesian), terminal falling interrogative intonation is reported in the polar questions without interrogative particles (Huang 2000: 151-3).
(15) Puyuma (Huang 2000: 151-2) a. sagar=yu kanku amáw?↗ like.AF=2.NOM 1 QP
‘Do you like me?’
b. a-ekan=yu Da biTénum?↘
RDP-eat.AF=2.NOM OBL egg
‘Would you like to eat eggs?’
In the particle questions (15a), final rising intonation is used, which is the same in declarative sentences. However, in the polar questions without interrogative particles (15b), terminal falling intonation is adopted.
Question particles
In Standard Chinese and most other Sinitic languages, (final) question particles resemble other final particles both in form and distribution. In particular, their phonological structures are CV, with nasal or bilabial consonants /n/ /m/ /p/
and open (mid) front vowels /a/ /ɛ/; and, as the label ‘final particle’ suggests, they occur sentence-finally. However, only some of them form polar questions, e.g. ma, ba, while some others cannot, e.g. a, ne.
Final particles also behave differently in wh- questions in Standard Chinese and most other Sinitic languages as well. As they occur in polar questions, final particles also express various pragmatic meanings in wh- questions, depending on the context, although they are not necessary in forming wh- questions.
(16) Standard Chinese
a. shui zhidao? (wh- question)
who know
‘Who knows this?’
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b. shui zhidao a/ne? (wh- question, rhetorical/‘on earth’/politeness)
who know FP
‘Who knows? (I don’t know.)’ / ‘Who on earth knows this?’ /
‘(Please tell me) Who knows this?’
c. shui zhidao ma? (polar question)
who know QP
‘Does someone know this?’
Note that a wh- question turns into a polar one if question particle ma is used (16c). (16c) is a case of indefinite-interrogative affinity (see, e.g. Li 1992, Haspelmath 1997, Bhat 2000, Gärtner 2009). In fact, in Standard Chinese the wh-phrases turn to be indefinite pronouns if question particle ma (and the like) is added at the end of a content question, cf. shui ‘who ~ someone’ (16c), nali
‘where ~ somewhere’, shenme ‘what ~ something’, etc.
(16c) has both a wh- word shui ‘who’ and a question particle ma, but it is a polar question, not a wh- one. The rule is that wh- questions invariably turn into polar questions by taking question particle ma (and sometimes ba), in other words, polar question particles override wh- words and form polar questions.
ne is different from other final particles in Standard Chinese in that it forms the so-called reduced wh- questions but the others cannot. In most other Sinitic languages and a number of minority languages in China, only some final particles can form such reduced wh- questions, and the number is much smaller than those used in normal wh- questions, although same particles are used in both normal wh- questions and reduced wh- questions in some languages, e.g.
Yongxin Gan (Sinitic) ne, Ningbo Wu (Sinitic) ȵi, Dulong (Tibeto-Burman) da55, Biao (Kam) ni1, etc. Such particles are collected in Section 3.3.2.
(17) Yongxin Gan
a. Zhangsan ne? ‘Where is Zhangsan?’
b. Zhangsan a? ‘Are you talking about Zhangsan?’
(17a) is a reduced wh- question (with particle ne), and (17b) is a polar question (with particle a, which is similar to Standard Chinese ma in this case).
Alternative structures
The form-meaning asymmetry in alternative questions can be seen at least
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in two aspects. First, in many languages, there is in fact no choice need to be made in alternative structures. For example, in English a question in the form of alternatives can be a yes/no question in reality, depending on intonation and prosody, compare: Do you like [apples]↗ or [oranges]↘? (alternative question), Do you like [apples or oranges]↗? (yes/no question) (see e.g. Han and Romero 2004 and references given therein; see also Jennings 1994: 27). Nevertheless, such yes/no reading does not exist in Standard Chinese and most other Sinitic languages (see the introduction in Chapter 4 for more discussion).
Second, alternative questions are hard to be neatly placed in the polar/content taxonomy. The issue has been mentioned before in Section 1.1.1, as such structures resemble both content questions and polar questions. The situation becomes more complicated if wh- phrases are involved, in which the alternative structures normally occur sentence-finally like a tag, e.g. Which course do you like better, Syntax or Semantics?
X-neg-X structures
In the literature of Chinese linguistics, X-neg-X questions are frequently classified as a subtype of alternative questions (see Section 2.1.1.1.1). This is majorly because the semantic relationship between X and neg-X is also one of disjunction.
Formally, the employment of disjunctions, a signal of alternative questions, is not found in such structures (see Section 4.1 for more discussion on the distinctness between the two structures). A radical formal view would claim that X-neg-X structures are declaratives because no interrogative readings can be directly inferred from the appearance. Nevertheless, this point is not adopted here. The present thesis treats alternative and X-neg-X as different structures not in regard of their forms only.
The form-meaning asymmetry in X-neg-X questions brings difficulties in the taxonomy, namely whether it is a subtype of polar questions or content questions. Formally, wh- phrases, a basic feature of content questions, are not involved in X-neg-X questions. Semantically, however, it requires not a yes/no answer but a X/not-X answer (a content information). For example, Standard Chinese ni qu-bu-qu Bolin? (2SG go-NEG-go Berlin) ‘Will you go Berlin?’ cannot be answered by a polar reply shi/bu ‘yes/no’, but can be answered by qu/bu qu
‘go/not go’, which provides content information.
It is obviously not an easy field to deal with the formal and
1 Introduction
semantic(-pragmatic) distinctions of interrogatives, as is seen in the approaches to the taxonomies (cf. Section 2.1.1.1.1). In this thesis, ‘polar questions’ and
‘yes/no questions’ are used as general labels that cover the interrogatives formed by the strategies listed in (18).
(18) Polar interrogative strategies in the languages of China a. Interrogative intonation only
b. Question particles
c. Interrogative verb morphology d. X-neg-X structures
e. Alternative structures f. Reduplicating structures g. Special tags
It can be seen that the subtypes of polar questions are basically based on the forms, that is, the descriptive concepts being used in this thesis are formal, although semantic-pragmatic factors are also considered.
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1.2. Motivation
Language typology studies what the languages of the world are like (Shopen 2007: xiv). In other words, typology is expected to present the diversity and its patterns (and it is expected to find some unity as well). For the present purpose, it is too early to conclude that a certain list of interrogative strategies covers most or all human languages: The list becomes longer when languages with different strategies are reported. In this sense, providing substantive structural features of interrogatives in individual languages is a first step for further generalization.
To compare generalizations of individual structural features, or rather, to seek to establish correlations in different structural features, is another major interest of typology. Some earlier typological studies on interrogatives have provided extensive results regarding the ways in which languages vary structurally and regarding correlations among different features (e.g. Greenberg 1966 universals No. 8-12, and 23 universals proposed by Ultan 1978; see below).
Two main typological views of the unity of human languages, that it demonstrates common features in structures, and that it correlates in structural features, are directly applicable to interrogatives.
This work contributes to both diversity and unity. It provides structural features of interrogativity in 138 languages in China, many of which have not been presented or presented well in the theoretical literature (see Chapters 2-6), and it correlates features of interrogativity with various structural features, in particular clause order, alignment, and locus of marking (see Section 7.1). It also contributes to areal typology by seeking to establish whether particular geographical distributions of different values for interrogative features are the result of contact among neighboring languages (see Section 7.2; for ‘areal typology’, see e.g. Dahl 2001, Comrie et al. 2005, Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2011).
Correlations or unities are not self-explanatory. In other words, language universals cannot be explained simply by claiming that a certain feature or category has something to do with another. For example, Greenberg’s (1966) Universal 10 notes that “Question particles or affixes, when specified in position by reference to a particular word in the sentence, almost always follow that word.
Such particles do not occur in languages with dominant order VSO.” Curious readers would go beyond the numbers of (un)attested languages and ask why question particles or affixes occur later and why don’t they exist in VSO
1 Introduction
languages. Similar problems are found in his Universals 8-9 and 11-12 concerning interrogatives. Such correlations or universals do not make a significant contribution to our knowledge about interrogatives without further explanation, albeit Greenberg (1966) provides two general principles, namely harmony and dominance, to account for such universals, but the principles need further explanation, too.
One obvious shortcoming of macro typology is that such approach does not tell us the history of individual languages or language groups, because it looks at samples of unrelated languages. Micro typology or areal typology remedies the disadvantage by examining languages that are very closely related, like languages or dialects within one language family, or languages that are related to each other geographically or historically.
All the history of language is areal history. For a complete understanding of the diversities and unities in interrogatives (and other grammatical categories as well) in a certain linguistic area (“area-versals”), several issues, namely (i) how do languages contact and change, (ii) how do certain interrogative strategies influence the others, and (iii) what is the origin of certain interrogative markers, are needed to examine.
The motivation or general research questions of the present work accordingly cover three aspects: (i) What the structural features of interrogative strategies are in the languages of China? (ii) How do the structural features of interrogatives correlate between themselves and with other grammatical categories? (iii) Why there are certain interrogative features in certain groups of languages or linguistic areas?
Interrogativity deserves more attention than it has been given by typologists.
As has been pointed out, “there have been few general, cross-linguistic discussions of questions” (Dixon 2012: 429). The major English typological works on interrogatives in the past 50 years are listed following. In his pioneering work on word order universals, Greenberg (1966/1963) proposes some patterns in interrogatives, which are summarized in his universals No. 8-12.
These universals manifest the placement of interrogative intonation (No. 8), the relation between question particles/affixes and adpositions (No. 9) or basic word order (No. 10), as well as the relation between question word/affixes and constituent sequencing (No. 11-12). Moravcsik (1971) presents some generalizations regarding yes/no questions and their answers. In a Greenbergian
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approach, Ultan (1978) examines the interrogative systems of 79 languages, and presents altogether 23 universals with reference to interrogatives, among which 3 deal with intonation, 3 with word accent, 10 with word order, and 7 with segmental elements. Chisholm (1984) collects information regarding interrogativity in 7 different languages. Bencini (2003) presents a diachronic typology of yes/no question constructions with particles. Dryer (2005a, b, c) conducts three general surveys of polar questions, the position of polar question particles, and the position of interrogative phrases in content questions using worldwide language samples. Rialland (2007) examines yes/no question prosody in 78 African languages. Miestamo (2011) focuses on polar interrogatives in Uralic languages by examining 20 Uralic languages from a typological perspective. Dixon (2012: 376-433) includes one chapter on the typology of interrogatives.
The list is too short compared to the studies of other major fields of linguistic typology, although it is by no means a complete list or a near complete one.
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1.3. Material
There are several theoretical and practical reasons for devoting the present thesis to the languages in China.
As noted, “China possesses rich linguistic resources which remain relatively untapped” (Chappell et al. 2007). Except for Standard Chinese, most other languages spoken in China have not been well represented in the theoretical literature. This thesis attempts to present an outline of the interrogative strategies of the languages of China, including in-depth discussions on topics related to interrogatives, in an effort to present a comprehensive view of the interrogative mechanisms at work in these languages.
The 138 languages with which this work is concerned include 10 Sinitic languages, 46 Tibeto-Burman, 22 Kam, 7 Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao), 22 Altaic, 16 Austronesian, 9 Austro-Asiatic, 1 Indo-European, and 5 Creole, covering diverse language families.
The practical reason for choosing such a focus is that the languages of China, and the descriptive literature about them, are the languages with which I am most familiar. Although there is a potential risk that linguists may to some extent turn a blind eye to familiar material, the advantage of doing so are obvious, especially in analyzing the areal skewings and historical factors of certain structural features.
This work covers 138 languages currently spoken in China.3 Basically, they are classified into two groups: the Sinitic languages and the ‘minority’ languages.
The classifications and names of individual languages used in this work mainly follow those employed by Sun et al. (2007).
Sinitic languages
There are ten Sinitic languages of China: Cantonese, Gan, Hakka, Hui, Jin, Mandarin, Min, Ping, Wu, and Xiang, covering about 93% of the population of
3 Note that the 138 languages covered here do not comprise the total number of languages currently spoken in China. More languages have been and are being discovered. Some known cases include Ainu, Bumang, Sadu, Younuo, and Zhaba, which are collected in Sun (ed.) (1997– ).
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China (according to the 2010 census, China has a population of 1.37 billion).
Their geographical distribution and number of speakers are roughly demonstrated in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1. The Sinitic languages (source: Wikipedia; URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language)
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Each language has various dialects or varieties. For example, Mandarin has basically six sub-dialects, including Beijing Mandarin, Jiang-Huai (Central-East) Mandarin, Central Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, and Lan-Yin (North-Central) Mandarin. Each sub-dialect of Mandarin has millions of native speakers, with notable differences in phonology, lexicon, and to some extent also in grammar (see e.g. Cao 2008). It is not precise to use the label ‘Mandarin (Chinese)’ or ‘Beijing Mandarin’ to refer to the Sinitic languages, nor is it proper to refer to the standard Chinese language, Putonghua (Taiwan Guoyu).4 By definition, Putonghua’s phonological system is based on Beijing Mandarin, its vocabulary is drawn from the large and diverse group of Mandarin varieties spoken across northern, central, and southwestern China, and the grammar is based on modern good literary works written in vernacular Chinese. With regard to this, throughout this thesis, the label ‘Standard Chinese’
is used to refer to Putonghua, while individual Mandarin languages maintain their own labels.
Some comprehensive works on Sintic languages mainly include: Li et al.
(1987), a detailed atlas of the languages of China (a revised edition will be published soon); Li et al. (1991-2003), including 42 monographs on the lexicon of individual Sinitic languages; Hou et al. (1995-1999), a sound archive of 40 Sinitic languages; Huang et al. (1996), a dialectal grammar of Sinitic languages, grouping by grammatical topics; and Cao (2008), three volumes (phonology, lexicon, and grammar) of the linguistic atlas of Sinitic languages. (See also Chappell et al. 2007 for some studies and projects in the Western world.)
Minority languages
The minority languages of China include at least 128 languages from various families/groups. ‘Minority’ does not necessarily imply a small number of
4 Putong-hua ‘common-language’ and Guo-yu ‘national-language’ are basically the same, though there are some differences in the pronunciation of a small number of words (see e.g. Duanmu 2000: 263-7 for an overview of the phonology of Taiwanese accented Standard Chinese).
In fact, most Chinese people acquire their local ‘dialect’ (dialects of Sinitic languages) as their first language and Standard Chinese (Putonghua) as their second language.
‘Standard Chinese’ is a standardized artificial language that no one actually speaks, since everyone speaks it in more or less dialectal ways. In this sense, what people speak is a specific Sinitic language (or, dialect of Chinese), but not Standard Chinese. (According to Duanmu’s 2009: 86 estimation, only about 1% of Chinese people can speak Standard Chinese without any obvious accent.)
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speakers. Minority languages are spoken by 7% of the population of China, which is a minority in comparison with the other 93% (the Han Chinese), but China has a population of about 1.37 billion and many so-called minority nationalities actually have a large population. For example, Tibetan has about 3.3 million native speakers, Mongolian has 5.8 million, Uighur has 8 million.
Nevertheless, many minority languages do indeed have a small number of native speakers (e.g. Dulong, Bola, Langsu, Leqi), or are highly endangered (e.g.
Manchu, Hezhen, Gelao, Tujia, Xiandao), or died out in a recent history (e.g.
some Formosan languages in Taiwan). Sun et al. (2007) provide further information regarding the number of speakers and areas in which individual languages are spoken. The following table provides some basic information about the minority languages. (Note that the classification of languages follows Sun et al. 2007, not necessarily in accordance with the popular classifications, especially in Kam languages, Austro-Asiatic languages, and Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) languages.)
Some comprehensive studies on the minority languages of China include:
Sun et al. (1980-1987), which includes 57 monographs and documents 59 languages (revised edition in 6 volumes published 2009, with one language, Manchu, added); Sun (ed.) (1997- ) intends to publish the newly-discovered languages and has already produced more than 40 books; Thurgood and LaPolla (2003), which collects dozens of Sino-Tibetan languages of China and beyond;
and Sun et al. (2007), which introduces 129 languages5 of China in one big book.
A list of the languages of China is given in Table 1.2.
5 In Sun et al. (2007), “Chinese” is a general label for all the Sinitic languages, which is different from the present work.
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Table 1.2. 138 languages of China (mainly based on Sun et al. 2007)
Family/Group/Branch Languages Sino-Tibetan (85)
Sinitic (10) Mandarin, Cantonese (Yue), Gan, Hakka (Kejia), Hui, Jin, Ping, Min, Wu, Xiang
Tibeto-Burman (46)
Tibetan (4) Baima, Menba, Tibetan, Tsangluo
Yi (15) Bai, Bisu, Hani, Jinuo, Kazhuo, Lahu, Lisu, Mo’ang, Naxi, Nusu, Rouruo, Sangkong, Tanglang, Tujia, Yi Jingpo (Kachin)
(9)
Anong, Bengni-Boga’er, Bengru, Darang, Dulong (Derung), Geman, Jingpo (Kachin), Sulong, Yidu Burmese (6) Achang, Bola, Langsu, Leqi, Xiandao, Zaiwa Qiangic (12) Ergong, Ersu, Guiqiong, Lawurong, Muya, Namuyi,
Pumi (Primi), Qiang, Queyu, rGyarong, Shixing, Zhaba Kam (22) Biao, Bouyei, Bugan, Buyang, Caijia, Chadong, Cun,
Dai, Gelao, Kam (Dong), Laji (Lachi), Lajia (Lakkia), Li, Lingao, Maonan, Mo, Mulao, Pubiao, Sui, Mulam, Yanghuang, Zhuang
Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) (7)
Bana, Bunu, Baheng, Hmong (Miao), Jiongnai, Mian (Mien), She
Altaic (22)
Turkic (9) Kazak (Kazakh), Kirgiz, Salar, Tatar, Tu’erke, Tuwa, Uighur (Uygur), Uzbek, Western Yugur
Mongolian (7) Bao’an, Daur, Dongxiang, Eastern Yugur, Kangjia, Mongolian, Tu
Manchu-Tungusic (6) Evenki, Hezhen (Nanai), Korean, Manchu, Oreqen, Xibo (Sibo, Xibe)
Austronesian (16)
Formosan (14) Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Pazeh, Puyuma, Rukai, Saaroa, Saisiyat, Sedeq (Sedik), Thao, Tsou
Batanic (1) Yami
Chamic (1) Huihui
Austro-Asiatic (9)
Mon-Khmer (6) Bulang (Blang), Buxing De’ang, Kemu, Kemie, Mang Viet-Muong (3) Jing, Lai, Wa (Va)
Indo-European (1) Tajik (Tadzhik)
Creole (5) E (Ai), Dao, Tangwang, Wutun, Za
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1.4. Methodology
The approach taken here is customary in typology. My main focus is on cross-linguistic variation of typological parameters. In particular, this work examines the correlations of 20 parameters in 138 languages: 9 features in interrogative strategies, 6 features in word order, 3 features in locus of marking, and 2 features in alignment. Nevertheless, language samples – an important feature of typology – are not included in the present study (except for in Section 7.1.4.2., which includes a sample of 80 ERGATIVE languages).
Correlating individual parameters across languages stems largely from Greenberg’s pioneering work on word order universals. In particular, by observing a proper set of languages and drawing descriptive generalizations of
Correlating individual parameters across languages stems largely from Greenberg’s pioneering work on word order universals. In particular, by observing a proper set of languages and drawing descriptive generalizations of