Questions
Polar Questions
Polar questions can be formed in several ways. Syntactic means can form overt polar questions, while particular intonations can give utterances with declarative syntax the illocutionary force of a question.
Syntactic Questions
Polar questions are formed by means of a sentence-initial question particle. There are several attested particles, with no clear semantic distinction among them.
ndax is one clause-initial question particle. It may or may not be preferentially used in instances where the speaker has incomplete information to make the yes-no judgment themselves, or situations in which the speaker is seeking confirmation. E.g. ndax añaama, "Is he eating?" as uttered while looking at a person with a plate and utensils (102). ndax can also be used as a complementizer, occurring at the left edge of a subordinated clause, meaning approximately 'whether.' In the case that it is used as a complementizer, a question can be formed by adding another ndax at the beginning of the matrix clause. (E.g. a'andee (ye) ndax xam ret 'he doesn't know whether I'll come'; ndax a'andee (ye) ndax xam ret? 'does(n't) he know whether I'll come?' (150))
Pragmatic Questions
Polar questions can be implied by uttering a declarative. Often, a non-sentence-final H is added to normal declarative (falling) intonation. The specific placement of the H varies.
xeƈa is another sentence-initial particle that expresses doubt, meaning roughly 'perhaps'. The free variant xaƈa exists. Sentences marked with xeƈa may be declarative or (through pragmatic interpretation) interrogative.
Uttering a bare verbal infinitive X (with optional and yet-to-be-systematically-studied person marking) has the force of asking permission to do X. E.g. gar? '(can I) come?'
WH Questions
All WH-questions are formed through the use of syntactically overt WH-pronouns.
xar - what
tam - where, with occasional licensing by an applicative suffix on the verb
an - who, with an apparent verbal prefix na- that is not entirely explainable yet
mban - when
yam xar - why, lit. 'because what'
WH Constituent Questions
Wh-DPs are formed such that the WH determiner agrees in noun class marking with the noun at the head of the NP. As such, there are 14 different ways of saying "which" and "how many/much".
Below, I present citation forms, which seem to be used when not agreeing with a noun class (either when the noun class is not known or when the position within the DP does not require agreement).
oxum 'which' is postposed to the noun it agrees with. Agreement forms will be listed here eventually.
podnum 'how many/much' is either postposed or preposed to its noun. If postposed, agreement occurs (e.g. andew ambodnum 'how many women.AUG'), but if preposed, agreement does not occur (e.g. podnum andew 'how many women.AUG'). Agreement forms will be listed here eventually.
The wh- question word appears in the form of a morphological change on the determiner, whereby the initial consonant is retained in agreement with the noun class, but the usual determiner vowel ending is substituted for -um:
faniik famaak fe
‘the big elephant’
faniik famaak fum yaxgu ‘Which big elephant is red?’
The underlying ‘which’ word must be num, since the consultant offered examples such as the following, which illustrate that num is also in word-class agreement, like any other type of noun-phrase-internal element would be:
faniik fum yaxgu ‘which elephant is red?’ faniik fanum yaxgu
In the absence of a noun, all singular and plural forms of which-determiners are as follows, without any noun-class-specific identifier, which is in fact disallowed:
oxum magnu ‘Which one is big?’
wum yaxgu ‘Which ones are big?’
- fum yaxgu
- fanum yaxgu
