5 Survey of the grammars of questions in Northeast Asia
5.5.3 Interrogatives in Indo-European
5.5.3.2 Interrogatives in Germanic
Table 5.25 gives the diachrony of several Germanic interrogatives and their modern Ger-man and English cognates. For some additional discussion see also Dunkel (2014). PIE
*kʷ otero-‘which of two’ has lost its interrogative meaning in German weder‘neither’
and in Englishwhether, used for indirect polar, focus, and alternative questions.
German, Yiddish, and Plautdiitsch share a single resonance inv~, as German <w> is pronounced as [v] as well (Table 5.26). As mentioned before, English has a variation betweenw~and two forms starting withh-. Altai Low Germanvənäiɐ‘when’ is closer
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Table 5.24: Selected PIE interrogatives with some cognates according to Mal-lory & Adams (2006: 419f.); extended with the help of Dunkel (2014: 436-441, 453-479); accents partly removed
PIE form PIE meaning Selected Cognates
*kʷós who nom.sg.m NE who, Grk toû, Skt kas, Got ƕas
*kʷís who nom.sg.an Lat quis, Grk tis, Av ciš
*kʷód what nom/acc.sg.n Lat quod, NE what, Skt kad
*kʷíd what nom/acc.sg.n Lat quid
*kʷóm ?when acc.sg.m Got ƕan, OCS ko-gda, (Lat cum)
*kʷíh1 how inst Lat quī, AE hwī, Polish czy
*kʷóteros which (of two) Grk poteros, Skt katara-, OCS koteryjĭ
*kʷodéha when Skt kadā
*kʷor where Lat quōr, OHG hwār, Skt karhi
*kʷóti how much/many Lat quot, Grk posos, Skt kati
*kʷéti how much/many Av čaiti, Breton pet der ‘how many days’
*kʷehak- what kind of [North West] OCS kakŭ, Lithuanian kok(i)s
*kʷoli ?how much only OCS kolikŭ ‘how large’, kolĭ ‘how much’
*kʷu(ú), ?*kú where Lat ubi, Grk pu-, Skt kū
*kʷu-dhe where OCS kŭde, OAv kudā, Skt kuha
to Dutchwanneer than to Germanwann. Similar to Dutchwaar and Englishwhere it also retains a reflex of a finalrinvuuɐ, while German only preserves an older form wor-in derived forms. But the formvou-directly corresponds to Germanwo-. Also compare Germanworauf, Dutchwaarop, and Plautdiitschvourǫp‘on what’ as well as German was, Dutchwat, and Plautdiitschvaut‘what’. Yiddishfar voshas direct correspondences in Germanfür was and English what for. This is a common European formation, e.g.
Italianperché‘why’ (cf.per‘for’,che‘what’).
German exhibits an interesting congruence of the two formswas‘what’ andwie‘how’
that in certain circumstances are mutually exchangeable.
(103) German
‘Are you ready or what?’
c. Du
‘You are the new one, aren’t you?’
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Table 5.25: Diachrony of selected German and English interrogatives (Hack-stein 2004: 175; Seebold 2002; Mallory & Adams 2006: 419f.; and Kroonen 2013:
261, 264)
PIE PG Old Germanic Modern Germanic
*kʷos m *hʷaz Got ƕas
-*kʷis m *hʷiz OHG (h)wer NHG wer
*kʷeh2f *hʷō OE hwā NE who
?OE hū NE how
*kʷod n *hʷat Got ƕat, OHG (h)waz, OE hwæt
NHG was, NE what
*kʷotero- *hʷaþera Got ƕaþar, OHG (h)wedar, OE hwæðer
(NHG weder ‘neither’, NE whether)
*kʷor *hʷar Got ƕar, OHG (h)war, OE hwǣr
NHG wo, NE where
*kʷom ? Got ƕan
-? OHG (h)wanne, (h)wenne, wenno, OE hwanne
NHG wann, (wenn ‘if’), NE when
*kʷih1 ? OE hwī, hwȳ NE why
? ? Got ƕaiwa, OHG (h)wio NHG wie ‘how’
Table 5.26: English, German (own knowledge), Yiddish (Katz 1987: 197; Jacobs et al. 1994: 404, 413-414, passim), and Altai Low German interrogatives (Jedig 2014: passim); Plautdiitsch forms in square brackets from Nieuweboer (1999)
English German Yiddish Plautdiitsch
who [h-] wer [-eːɐ] ver veeɐ
how [h-] wie [-iː] vi [vöu]
how much/many wieviel(e) [-iː-] vi fil(e) [vöu fiel]
what was vos vaut
which welch-er [-ɐ] velkher [vöune-]
what kind of was für [-ʏɐ] ein- [a-] vos far a
where wo vu vuuɐ
wither, where to wohin vuhin vuuɐhaan
whence, where from
woher [-eːɐ] vuuɐheeɐ, vouheeɐ
when wann ven vənäiɐ
why, how come, for what reason
wieso, weshalb, warum vuurǫm
what for wozu, für [-ʏɐ] was tsu vos, far vos
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English cannot employ the interrogativehowin these circumstances. The information on Yiddish and Plautdiitsch available to me is insufficient for a comparison.
Germanwas für ein-is a complex interrogative similar to Englishwhat kind of. Inter-estingly it is still separable as witnessed by the following examples.
(104) German
‘What kind of holiday is this?’
An analogous situation can be seen in Yiddish.
(105) Yiddish
‘What kind of holiday is this?’ (Jacobs et al. 1994: 413)
For Altai Low German no cognate is attested (but cf. Dutchwat voor een). The conju-gation ofwas für ein-in German is highly complex and depends on number, gender, and case (Table 5.27). In the plural the interrogativewelch-‘which’ substitutes forein-(cf.
eins‘one’). Compare the full paradigm of the interrogativewelch-‘which’ (Table 5.28).
The genitive forms are rare, but are listed for the sake of completeness.
Table 5.27: Conjugation ofwas für ein-‘what kind of’
Case sg.m sg.f sg.n pl
nom ein-e ein ein(s) Ø/welch-e
acc ein-e ein-en ein Ø/welch-e
dat ein-er ein-em ein-em Ø/welch-en
gen ein-es ein-er ein-es Ø/welch-er
Bothwas für ein-/welch-as well aswelch-may be used either pronominally or attribu-tively. If used attributively and in the plural,was für may be used on its own. In the singular there is the purely pronominal formwas für einsfor the neuter instead of the
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Table 5.28: Conjugation ofwelch-‘which (one)’
Case sg.m sg.f sg.n pl
nom welch-e welch-er welch-es welch-e
acc welch-e welch-en welch-es welch-e
dat welch-er welch-em welch-em welch-en
gen welch-es welch-er welch-es welch-er
attibutive formwas für ein. Germanwie viel-, Yiddishvi fil(e), and Plautdiitschvöu fiel are based on the same underlying pattern as Englishhow many. The conjugation ofwie viel-exhibits the same case markers as the plural forms ofwelch-. While English employs how muchinstead ofhow manyfor mass nouns, Germanwie vielsimply lacks inflection.
In German, Plautdiitsch, Yiddish, and English the personal interrogative shows a small paradigm. The interrogatives meaning ‘what’ do not show case marking.
Table 5.29: German, Yiddish, Plautdiitsch, and English conjugation of the per-sonal interrogative
Case German Plautdiitsch Yiddish English
nom wer [-eːɐ] veeɐ ver who [h-]
acc wen [-eː-] ? vemen whom
dat wem [-eː-] veem vemen whom
gen wessen ? vemens whose
Of these four languages only German and perhaps Plautdiitsch preserve four distinct forms, although Germanwessen, which as has an archaic variantwes, is increasingly replaced withvon wem‘of whom’. German has a parallel paradigm and asymmetry of the definite article or demonstrativeder‘that one, the.m.sg’:der,den,dem,des(sen), but das‘that’.
Plautdiitschvuurǫmis comparable to Germanwarum‘why’, which is based on MHG wār + umbe‘where + around’. Several more forms in Plautdiitsch such asvou-bii(German wo-bei) have a locative basis. Unfortunately, only a few forms from Plautdiitsch are at-tested, which is why German forms are given instead (Table 5.30). English shares some of these formations, e.g.whereby,thereby,herebyetc. In one group ther is preserved but reanalyzed as belonging to the second element (wor-um>wo-rum, while in another group therwas lost or at least is not present. This seems also to hold for Plautdiitsch, e.g.vour.ǫp(Germanwor.auf) andvou-fǫn(Germanwo-von). Within the first group the vowel following ther helped preserve it. Depending on the verb, some of these forms derived from ’where’ may also just mean ‘what’, which is highly unusual from a typolog-ical perspective (Cysouw 2007). Compare, for instance, Englishto consist[of what] and German [wor.aus]bestehen. The development of the meaning of the individual forms is
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Table 5.30: German interrogative and demonstrative paradigms
where there here Explanation
wo(r) da(r) hin hier her plain
wo-bei da-bei - hier-bei - ‘at, by, with’
wo-mit da-mit - hier-mit - ‘with’
wo-nach da-nach - hier-nach - ‘to, after’
wo-von da-von - hier-von - ‘from, of’
wo-zwischen da-zwischen- ?hier-zwischen- ‘between’
wo-hin da-hin - hier-hin - ‘there’
wo-her da-her - hier-her - ‘here’
wo-vor da-vor - ?hier-vor - ‘in front’
wo-durch da-durch - hier-durch - ‘through’
wo-zu da-zu - hier-zu - ‘to’
wor.in d(a)r.in - ?hier.in - ‘in’
wor.auf d(a)r.auf (hi)n.auf hier.auf (he)r.auf ‘on, up’
wor.unter d(a)r.unter (hi)n.unter hier.unter (he)r.unter ‘under’
wor.über d(a)r.über (hi)n.über hier.über (he)r.über ‘over’
wor.aus d(a)r.aus (hi)n.aus hier.aus (he)r.aus ‘out’
wor.ein d(a)r.ein (hi)n.ein hier.ein (he)r.ein ‘in(to)’
wor.um, war.um d(a)r.um hin.um hier.um (he)r.um ‘about, in order to’
highly idiosyncratic. For example,wor.übermay either mean ‘over what place’ but also
‘about what’. The close relationship betweendaandwo(Englishthereandwhere) may be directly traced to Proto-Indo-European where we find the two forms *tó-rand *kʷ ó-r (Mallory & Adams 2006: 419). Germanhier [-iː-] (Englishhere, Plautdiitschhie, Dutch hier) must be a Germanic innovation ultimately based on *h1ei-‘this (one)’ (Mallory &
Adams 2006: 417f.), but it is somewhat obscure (e.g., Seebold 2002).
There are also some parallel forms based onher‘here (movement)’ (a variant ofhier) andhin‘there (movement), towards’ that are also used as preverbs, e.g.her-kommen‘to come here’,hin.zu-fügen‘to add’ etc. In German the reanalysis resulted in a few problems such as the fact that there are no separate forms *he-(henceher.um>he.rum>rum), *hi-(hencehin.ein>hi.nein>nein) etc.