Content questions

In content (or information) questions, a question word replaces one of the constituents of the corresponding declarative sentence (see (21)). This question word is always the focused element of the question, representing the crucial piece of new information that is being requested. With regard to the structure of the content question, the first issue to be addressed is: where does the question word appear in the sentence? Most languages use one of two basic strategies: either the question word appears at the beginning of the sentence, ¹ as in English, or the question word appears in the place where the constituent which it replaces would normally occur in a declarative sentence. The first strategy is often called “Wh-fronting.” ² For languages which employ the second strategy, we say that the question word remains in situ (the Latin phrase meaning ‘in place’).

(21) a John gave his mother a jade necklace on her birthday.

        b Who gave John’s mother the jade necklace on her birthday?

        c What did John give his mother on her birthday?

        d Who did John give the jade necklace to?

        e When did John give his mother the jade necklace?

In some languages, devices which are used to mark Yes–No questions particles, interrogative mood affixation, special intonation, etc.–also occur (either optionally or obligatorily) in content questions. For example, the interrogative mood is obligatory in Greenlandic in both Yes–No questions and content questions (22). But these features are of secondary importance in content questions. The crucial defining feature of a content question is the presence of an interrogative (Wh-) word.

¹. More precisely, in focus position. In many languages this means sentence-initial. But in languages like Hungarian, in which focused elements occupy a non-initial position, the question word will appear there as well.

². This name is inherited from the Transformational Grammar analysis of these constructions. Under the approach adopted here, we assume that these structures are directly generated by special PS rules. See Kroeger (2004) and references cited there.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يصدر كتابًا توثيقيًّا عن جرائم الإرهاب بحق زائري الأربعين في العراق

في مقابلة خاصة مع المشرف على قسم الشؤون الطبية: مركز السيد جعفر الحلي يعزز الاستجابة الطبية الطارئة ولا سيّما في الزيارات المليونية

لمنتسبي العتبة العباسية المقدسة.. قسم الشؤون الدينية يجري الاختبارات العملية للمشاركين في الدورة التطويرية الثانية

المجمع العلمي يقيم الدورة الــ 20 في تعليم أحكام التلاوة لطلبة العلوم الدينية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

العلاج بالماء البارد.. باحثون يكشفون فوائده الصحية

من دون صالة رياضية.. عادة بسيطة لتحسين الصحة وخسارة الوزن

لصحة القلب وتفادي السرطان.. استهلك هذا النوع من الطعام

دراسة تحذر من خطر شرب القهوة في أكواب البلاستيك

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

إنجاز طبي تاريخي.. جراحة قلب بلا شق في الصدر

اليابان.. مراحيض توفر فحص للحالة الصحية عبر "تحليل البراز" !

اختراق واسع لمنصة "إنستغرام".. ونشر بيانات على "الدارك ويب"

علماء يحذرون: هكذا سيفنى كوكب الأرض

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Huallaga Quechua

Case studies Mandarin

Yes–No questions

Questions (interrogative sentences)

Commands (imperative sentences)

Basic word order

Direct vs. indirect speech acts

Special sentence types

A note on “impersonal constructions”

Tense, Aspect, and Modality Conclusion

Modality

Mood