Declarative interrogatives?

[Prinsessa]

I might not be a beginner, but this might be a stupid question. About questions. Non-questions. Inquiries.

Question words in Vanga have been bothering me from the get-go, and I still haven't found a pleasing solution. I just got an idea, though. I just want to know how unrealistic and/or unnaturalistic (or not, hopefully – maybe there are good natlang correspondences – perhaps in good, old North America, that has been helpful so many times) this might be.

So instead of actually using interrogative particles or forms of any sort (just maybe an interrogative mood to accompany this idea, but I would like not to have one, if that can work – maybe a change in pitch, still), the idea is to use normal declarative sentences, that state their request. It can be more or less polite depending on the wording and circumstances.

So, instead of A, I'll have > B.

• what is your name? > I'd like to know your name (polite) / I want to know […] (semi-polite) / tell me […] (very direct, though not necessarily impolite)
• is this yours? / I wonder if this yours / I'd like to know […] / et c.
• how many? / tell me the amount / count (me) the amount et c.
• how old are you? / tell/count me (the amount of) your winters / […] years / et c.

Well?

This would fit so much better in the language...

[Micamo]

You can totally have content questions without special interrogative particles or verb forms, and you can do polar questions with nothing but a change in pitch (at least one language apparently has no distinction between polar questions and declarative sentences at all, but even that language has a way to form content questions IIRC). You can even avoid wh-movement and use a construction known as wh-in-situ (which is available but marked in english, only usable in special pragmatic contexts):

"How many apples did you eat?" > "You ate how many apples?"
"What is that dog chasing?" > "That dog is chasing what?"

[Prinsessa]

You can totally have content questions without special interrogative particles or verb forms, and you can do polar questions with nothing but a change in pitch (at least one language apparently has no distinction between polar questions and declarative sentences at all, but even that language has a way to form content questions IIRC). You can even avoid wh-movement and use a construction known as wh-in-situ (which is available but marked in english, only usable in special pragmatic contexts):

"How many apples did you eat?" > "You ate how many apples?"
"What is that dog chasing?" > "That dog is chasing what?"

I feel like your example brings back the initial problem, unless I'm misunderstanding something. :/ It doesn't really matter where the interrogation is marked, it is the fact that it is marked at all, at least by a particle. Could I have the language possibly have relic particles or something like that, that might be known, but considered old-fashioned and largely obsolete, with the system I proposed having taken over virtually entirely?

Though, if that were the case, couldn't I simply consider that to have been the situation even farther back in the past, now completely forgotten and absolutely replaced by this new system?

[Systemzwang]

A small set of imperatives could probably serve for the purpose, but over time they'd probably be fully grammaticalized as question-markers; of course, question-markers can serve more purposes than just marking questions, i.e. in Finnish -ko also serves the purpose of marking "whether" - "I don't know if/whether they'll mind" -> "I don't know will.Q they mind?"

[Prinsessa]

A small set of imperatives could probably serve for the purpose, but over time they'd probably be fully grammaticalized as question-markers; of course, question-markers can serve more purposes than just marking questions, i.e. in Finnish -ko also serves the purpose of marking "whether" - "I don't know if/whether they'll mind" -> "I don't know will.Q they mind?"

Well, yes, effectively, some sort of 'tell' and 'count' verbs and the like would indeed become lexicalised interrogative auxiliaries pretty much, but may still retain their original use as well, or at least some of the words, or to some extent. It's still more interesting than a set of ancient particles to me, and more importantly, it's by using verbs, which I'm keen on for this language.

[Creyeditor]

IIUC, you want to substitue direct questions for indirect questions. I guess there might still be some kind of "question particle" in some cases, though. Plus, you want to get rid of the traditional "question particles". Let's start with the latter.

• 1. What's that? > I'd like to know what this is. / I want you to tell me the sort of that thing.
  2. Where are you from? > I'd like to know where you are from. / I want you to tell me the place that you are from.
  3. Is this yours? > I wonder if this belongs to you.

In the first two examples you either use a question word in the indirect question (left of the slash) or you use a nominal phrase as a substitution (right of the slash). These nouns are often related to content question words. I guess if you only use this words in your conlang, they could be considered question words, which happen to be homophones to normal nouns. WALS says that in some languages interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns are identical. So you could possibly also say (wh-in-situ, left side of the slash):

• 1. That is something? / That is a thing?
  2. You are from somewhere? / You are from a place?

Now, if you cheat a little bit and say your indefinite pronouns are also generic-noun-based (see WALS), or homophones to them, you can basically say the sentence on the right side of the slash.

• 3. I want to know (if/that) this belongs to you.

However, in the third sentence, the "if" marks the sentence as interrogative. If you ommit that, you would at least have to use pitch to distinguish the two meanings shown here.

If you use indirect questions or direct questions is usually a matter of style/register (at least in the langs I know). If you only want to you use indirect questions, I guess that's okay

I hope that helps a bit

[Prinsessa]

Yeah, that's more or less what I want. I still guess it would become sort of a defective verb. Kind of like how Finnish has a negative verb instead of negative particles/adverbs/w/e, couldn't I therefore then have a defective interrogative verb instead of particles/pronouns/w/e?

[Lambuzhao]

Your conundrum reminds me of a question Aszev asked in another thread about indefinite articles. In my searchings, I was reminded of the indefinite (pronoun, not article) nokkur in :ice:. It's etymology comes from a Proto-Germanic *ni wait hvaR.
I think you could do something like this, perhaps:

What is that? -> That is unknown. OR I don't know that. (OR Tell me that.)

How much is it? -> The price is unknown. OR I don't know the price (OR Tell me the price.)

Who ate my pie? -> The eater (AOR/PST.PTCP) of my pie is unknown OR
I don't know the eater (AOR/PST.PTCP) of my pie.

(You might be able to get into some interesting participial constructions, if your
has 'em)


Considering an "Interrogative Mood":
Statements with I wonder if... and I want to know... would contain subjunctive mood, if they were .

[Khemehekis]

"How many apples did you eat?" > "You ate how many apples?"
"What is that dog chasing?" > "That dog is chasing what?"

These sound exactly like Kankonian sentences:

Ar abamen anti bepas?
2sg eat-PST how_many apple-PL

Ham karaph ranzeas hiel?
this/that dog chase-PRS what

[Prinsessa]

Your conundrum reminds me of a question Aszev asked in another thread about indefinite articles. In my searchings, I was reminded of the indefinite (pronoun, not article) nokkur in :ice:. It's etymology comes from a Proto-Germanic *ni wait hvaR.

Yeah, I'm aware of that lovely one. :D I think it's more like *ne wait ek hw-something-z in PG, though, but eh. Details, details.

I think you could do something like this, perhaps:

What is that? -> That is unknown. OR I don't know that. (OR Tell me that.)

How much is it? -> The price is unknown. OR I don't know the price (OR Tell me the price.)

Who ate my pie? -> The eater (AOR/PST.PTCP) of my pie is unknown OR
I don't know the eater (AOR/PST.PTCP) of my pie.

(You might be able to get into some interesting participial constructions, if your
has 'em)


Considering an "Interrogative Mood":
Statements with I wonder if... and I want to know... would contain subjunctive mood, if they were .

Yeah, it seems likely my current state would have been a bit reänalysed or generalised in the minds of the current speakers.

[Prinsessa]

All right, so I might have found a solution that I feel okay with. I'm using what I've said, the word for 'tell', historically, to derive a modern particle of sorts that behaves virtually like an incorporated "noun" in the language, the development of which it ties in with.

The word's original sense would have been able to cover 'tell', 'count', 'retell', 'estimate' and the like.
So, in an earlier version the language, we might have had something like this.

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ha-  um-awa | wa- um-aw-uk
tell-2- 3   | eat-2- 3- REL

The meaning here would have been something like "(re)tell it, that which you eat" = "tell me what you eat", and would have been an ever so increasingly common way of inquiring stuff, all while there would have been an older more IE-like system in existence, as the (eventually decreasing) standard one.

Somewhere in its post-stage, as the phrasing began to get more common, the object would start getting omitted from the imperative.

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ha-  um | wa- um-aw-uk
tell-2  | eat-2- 3- REL

We then let time pass, and start moving on to an entirely new, no longer as intelligible variant of the language. A new era. The previous was Ancient Vanga and Post-Ancient Vanga, and we have now moved on to Old Vanga.

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hǫ- wwa-um-a-ug
INT-eat-2- 3-REL

Attached enough to geminate the following consonant, we have now reached a point of more or less full integration. Skipping Middle Vanga and moving on to Modern Vanga, the variety of my interests, the metamorphosis is complete.

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hǫ- vva-m-ȯ
INT-eat-2-3

"What are you eating?"

Now, this gloss makes it look like a funky prefix, but watch, as the continuous form makes it get reänalysed along the way, making it pick up the same pattern as an incorporated noun – i.e. getting squeezed in between the progressive aspect prefix and the verb stem.

Ancient to Post-Ancient:

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ha-  um-awa | a-   wwa-um-aw-u
tell-2- 3   | PROG-eat-2- 3- REL
→
ha-  um | a-   wwa-um-aw-u
tell-2  | PROG-eat-2- 3- REL

Note how by the time of Old Vanga, the reänalysation is complete, and the a- has moved before the interrogative, and then carries on into Vanga:

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a-   hhǫ- wwa-um-a-u
PROG-INT- eat-2- 3-REL
→
a-   hhǫ-vva-m-ȯ
PROG-INT-eat-2-3

"What are you eating?"

Now, for some more dancing with word order, and to show that Vanga had more of a normal noun system once upon a time, let us derive another thing.

Consider the following AV example:

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luku  | ha-  um-awa | sal-   w- ah | la-w-ah
place | tell-2- 3   | little-PL-3  | be-3-PL

The lack of any relativiser is ancestral to Vanga's modern complete lack of it, and even English works as a confirming example here: "tell me the place they are". No problem omitting one in English either.

In the post-stage, the object suffix has been removed again, but the noun had begun dropping out in such phrasing too. It had begun to become a fixed phrasing.

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ha-  um | sal-   w- ah | la-w-ah
tell-2  | little-PL-3  | be-3-PL

By the point of OV, the grammaticalisation of the interrogative, by then, affix was complete, and had been required to become consistently fixed to the predicate, making the word order change.

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hǫ- lla-w- a | ssall-    ah
INT-be- PL-3 | little.PL-3

Not much of a change in the modern language:

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hǫ- ll-   ȯ | ssall-    ah
INT-be.PL-3 | little.PL-3

"Where are the children?"

As you can see, the hǫ- is now an interrogative with the meaning changing depending on the lexical sense of the verb to which it is applied. In cases of ambiguity, further verbs can be added in an auxiliary kind of way to clarify.

Yes/no questions will probably have no marking or change in word order, but just a change in intonation.

What do you think?

[decem]

What do you think?

I think I saw you post something in this sort of construction in the irc channel, I think it's nice. Although, would it be "imperative interrogatives" rather than declarative?

[Prinsessa]

What do you think?

I think I saw you post something in this sort of construction in the irc channel, I think it's nice. Although, would it be "imperative interrogatives" rather than declarative?

What I finally suggested just now would be an interrogative marker proper, really. With the syntax of an incorporated noun. :p

Oh, and, well, the fact that in most languages, an interrogative marker would mark a yes/no question (is this what's called a "tag question"?), but here it takes on the interrogative meaning that makes most sense (or has become standard for) a root, while extra help verbs would need to be added in case of a desire to give it another meaning.

However, I also intend on letting the ancient system of imperatives that gave rise to this in the modern language to have survived or been revived with another lexeme, so that it still is an available and sometimes preferred way of inquiring something.

Thus, for one, in the case of 'eat', INT takes on the standard meaning of 'what':

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INT-eat-2 = what are you eating?

Another available option becomes the inquiry:

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tell-2-3 eat-2 = tell me what you eat

or possibly:

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<food>tell-2 = tell (me) (what is) the (=your) food

In order to ask 'why', another verb is needed:

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INT-reason-2 eat-2 = how are you reasoning about your eating?
<reason>tell-2 eat-2 = tell (me) (what is) the reason (that) you eat

And so on:

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INT-stand-2 eat-2 = where do you eat?
INT-time_pass-3 eat-2 = when do you eat?*
INT-act-2 eat-2 = how do you eat?

* Vanga has a verb that means 'for/of time to pass'.