WH-words are not ‘interrogative’ pronouns : the derivation of interrogative interpretations for constituent questions

I discuss the status of WH-words for interrogative interpretations, and show that the derivation of constituent questions evolves from a specific interplay of syntactic and semantic representations with pragmatics. I argue that WH-pronouns are not ‘interrogative’. Rather, they are underspecified elements; due to this underspecification, WH-words can form a constitutive part not only of interrogative, but also of exclamative and declarative clauses. WH-words introduce a variable of a particular conceptual domain into the semantic representation. Accordingly, they have to be specified for interpretation. Different WH-contexts give rise to different interpretations. In a cross-linguistic overview, I discuss the characteristic elements contributing to the derivation of interrogatives. I argue that specific particles or their phonologically empty counterparts in the head of CP contribute the interrogative aspect. The speech act of ‘asking’ is then carried out via an intonational contour that identifies a question. By default, this intonational contour operates on interrogative sentences; however, other sentence formats – in particular, those of declarative sentences – are possible as well. The distinction of (a) grammatical (syntactic, semantic and phonological) sentence formats for interrogative and declarative sentences, and (b) intonational contours serving the discrimination of speech acts like questions and assertions, can be related to psychological and neurological evidence

Word order variation in interrogative structures of native and non-native French

Inter-individual variation in the use of direct interrogative structures (N=450) is explored in a corpus of spoken native and non-native French. A quantitative analysis of the data reveals that while non-native speakers seem to avoid non-standard structures, they do not use more formal variants systematically. Comparison with data from other native and non-native corpora reveals important differences in the frequency of particular interrogative structures. The choice of interrogative structure seems to be influenced by a number of situational, pragmatic and socio-stylistic variables

Asynchronous grammaticalization: V1-conditionals in present-day English and German

The present paper contrasts verb-first (= V1-)conditionals in written usage in present-day English and German. Based on the hypothesis that V1-protases originated in independent interrogatives and then grammaticalized as conditional subordinate clauses in an asynchronous fashion in both languages, we use data from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Deutsches Referenzkorpus (DeReKo) to investigate the lexical overlap of V1-protases with interrogatives and their functional overlap with ‘if-/wenn’-conditionals. The results show, inter alia, that English V1-conditionals are highly divergent from polar interrogatives and occupy a functional niche with respect to ‘if-’conditionals, with their German counterparts showing more transitional characteristics in both respects; they also suggest a special role for V1-protases with ‘should/sollte’ in expressing a subtype of neutral, rather than tentative, conditionality. Finally, prospects are discussed for future research regarding possible synchronic (i.e. discourse-functional) and diachronic (i.e. systemic) motivations for the differences and similarites observed between V1-conditionals in the two present-day languages

Exclamative clauses at the syntax-semantics interface

Exclamative clauses exhibit a structural diversity which raises the question of whether they form a clause type in the sense of Sadock & Zwicky (1985). Based on data from English, Italian, and Paduan, we argue that the class of exclamatives is syntactically characterizable in terms of a pair of abstract syntactic properties. Moreover, we propose that these properties encode two components of meaning which uniquely define the semantics and pragmatics of exclarnatives. Overall, our paper is a contribution to the study of the syntaxlsemantics interface and offers a new perspective on the notion of clause type

Changement grammatical et discursif en français multiculturel de la région parisienne : éléments de comparaison

Cet article cherche à comparer la variation et le changement dans deux domaines linguistiques, à savoir la grammaire et le discours. Il présente les résultats du projet « Multicultural London English – Multicultural Paris French » et s’interroge sur les différences dans l’usage des traits innovants et leur corrélation avec certaines catégories sociales. Du côté grammatical, la recherche se concentre en particulier sur l’usage des interrogatives indirectes in situ telles que 'je sais pas c’est qui' et 'je sais ça veut dire quoi', fréquemment utilisées à l’oral chez certains locuteurs. Du côté pragmatico-discursif, elle discute de l’utilisation des particules d’extension (et tout, et tout ça). L’étude révèle que la distribution des innovations discursives n’est pas la même que celle des innovations grammaticales, dont l’usage est davantage clivé en fonction des catégories sociales. L’article tente d’apporter des éclairages sur les processus de grammaticalisation et de changement, en s’interrogeant sur l’existence d’un français multiculturel typiquement « jeune » ou typiquement « parisien »

On negation in yes/no questions in Serbo-Croatian

The phenomenon discussed in this paper is the so-called expletive negation in negated yes/no questions in Serbo-Croatian. The term expletive negation seems, at this point to be a useful descriptive term for the phenomenon in question. One of the goals of this paper, however, is to show that it is not the correct one. Proposing the existence of semantically vacuous negation is the consequence of the assumption that sentential negation has a fixed position in the clausal hierarchy (Brown and Franks 1995). This approach cannot account for the relevant data in Serbo-Croatian. My claim is that the cases under consideration involve an alternative position of NegP in Serbo-Croatian, above TP. It is confined to the derivation of one semantic type of negated yes/no interrogatives, and it cannot trigger negative concord

The syntax of orientation shifting: Evidence from English high adverbs

This paper reviews new data supporting the inclusion of a Speech Act Phrase in the left periphery. Illocutionary and evidential adverbs in English shift orientation from speakers in declarative sentences to addressees in yes-no interrogative sentences. This orientation shift falls out of independently motivated principles: the adverbs contain a logophorically-sensitive PRO subject which is controlled by a syntactic representation of the discourse participants contained in a Speech Act Phrase high in the CP layer. It will be suggested that clause type modulates which discourse participants are available; only speakers are available in declaratives whereas addressees are also available in interrogatives