language with no interrogative pronouns?

[xBlackWolfx]

this is another conlang i'm thinking up for fun (actually it'll be one of several i think up for a conworld, probably wont be fleshed out much). and i thought of some odd features for it. one of them being that there are no interrogative pronouns.

a question is formed simply by stating a normal sentence with one of two markers: one asks if the question is true or false, the other simply asks for details about the scenario that the person mentions. for example, 'how are you' is simply:

question-marker you(singuler) fare(verb).

the only issue i could think of is being unable to differentiate between 'how did you do it?' and 'why did you do it?'. the marker essentially just asks for any information related to the topic. it's sorta similar to the japanese topic marker (mostly in how certain questions are formed with it, such as konnichi wa and namae wa)

would this actually work? i like the language to be somewhat alien since it's spoken by a non-human race (i call them 'elves' even though they dont fully fit in with the typical cliche that most ppl identify as elves). my 'elves' are a highly intelligent and long-lived race of humanoids that are racist against non-elves. infact they dont have seperate words for 'person' and 'elf', the only way to be a person to them is to be an elf, if you're not an elf then you're an animal. their language however will actually be rather simple without too many distinctions, it sounds sorta odd that my elves would speak such a language (especcially considering they're actually divided into several different nations and cultures, each of which speaks its own dialect), but it sorta makes sense if you consider the fact that they would certainly be intelligent enough to casually decipher what is meant without needing it spelled out for them. my elves also tend to be emphasize practicality and effeciency, elf sentences tend to be really short and accordingly dont convey much information.

why the hell am i doing another elvish language? i dont know, i guess it's an interesting study into an alien language without it being too inhuman and thus incompresensible. heck i may even have a verb system similar to the one in kelen.

[Maximillian]

The hypothetical "question-marker you(singuler) go(verb)" can mean "Where do you go?", "Where are you coming from?", "Why do you go [there]?" and "How do yo go [there]?". Too ambiguous. =\
Maybe you can use specifying words, like for "Why do you go?" one would say "question-marker you go reason", but "question-marker you go way" for "How do yo go?".

[Ossicone]

I tried to do something like this with Inyauk. What I came up with was having a question prefix which attaches to the element in question. The only difference between a yes/no Q is if the questioned element is specific or not.

Why did you do it = you do it reason-Q
How do you go = you go path-Q
Where are you coming from? - you go place-Origin-Q
Where are you going to? - you go place-Destination-Q

Who is the only different one, and uses the 4th person. (It exists, I am not making stuff up. :|)
I have no idea if this would work for your lang. :/

[xBlackWolfx]

The hypothetical "question-marker you(singuler) go(verb)" can mean "Where do you go?", "Where are you coming from?", "Why do you go [there]?" and "How do yo go [there]?". Too ambiguous. =\
Maybe you can use specifying words, like for "Why do you go?" one would say "question-marker you go reason", but "question-marker you go way" for "How do yo go?".

yeah i was thinking about that, even though it bears a resemblence to an idea i had for my auxlang. you form your own question words with a prefix, so the word for 'why' is simply the word for 'reason' with a prefix on it, it could be literally translated as 'what reason'.

or i could just use it as a universal interrogative pronoun, similar to how lojban does. this wouldnt cause any ambiguity problems as far as i know, as long as the object's role in the sentence is clearly specified. the only thing that could possibly be unclear is wheather you're talking about an elf or a non-elf/animal. the sentences 'you're going to where' and 'you're going to who' would be identical, though such a thing would be pretty much irrelevant. and if there is a need to specify exactly what the object must be, then you could instead ask 'you are going to which person' or 'you are going to which place'. of course that's turning back onto your idea, but it would be optional instead of arbitrary.

the case system however will be somewhat ambiguous. the main case markers will be highly ambiguous, such as 'this word has something to do with how the action is performed' and 'the action is somehow directed at this object' (both of these are based off of the japanese postpositions de and ni, infact the whole case system is based mostly off of japanese). the only directions that will be specified are at, to, and from (it'll use prepositional phrases to specify everything else like into, outof, etc...). heck the agent marker will also have additional uses, most likely it'll literally translate as 'this object caused this event to occur' or i could simply use the marker that designates something as describing the action (first marker i specified is also used to form adverbs). the possessive will also be used to form adjectives. it's a system with an obviously different philosophy behind it.

[masako]

I already do this with Kala.

ama ka - time INT.part = when

ta yala ka - 2s go INT.part = Where are you going? / Where do you go?

ku ha yohatli ka - amount 3s have.FUT INT.part = How many will she have?

[Golahet]

would this actually work?

Not having any interrogative pronouns? That will work without any problem.

You could easily do without ANY interrogative (not just pronouns) in the language. It's trivially easy to paraphrase it with imperatives*: "Specify the reason you ate the bird!" = "Why did you eat the bird?" Using the question-marker by default and using something like "Specify the reason you ate the bird!" only when necessary works perfectly fine.

The hypothetical "question-marker you(singuler) go(verb)" can mean "Where do you go?", "Where are you coming from?", "Why do you go [there]?" and "How do yo go [there]?". Too ambiguous. =\

Too vague (not ambiguous) ... IF it isn't possible to be more specific when need arises, and it should be possible, since interrogatives aren't crucial for the expressive power of a language.

Maybe you can use specifying words, like for "Why do you go?" one would say "question-marker you go reason", but "question-marker you go way" for "How do yo go?".

If those suggestions are interpreted literally, then they are still much vaguer than your translations. Or they are syntactically discontinuous complex interrogative pronouns.

I tried to do something like this with Inyauk. What I came up with was having a question prefix which attaches to the element in question. The only difference between a yes/no Q is if the questioned element is specific or not.

So basically morphologically complex interrogative pronouns?

I have something similar. I have an interrogative affix that behaves morphosyntactically as a modifier (QM) (basically meaning "which?"), and another interrogative affix that behaves morphosyntactically as an argument (QA) (basically meaning "what?" in the broadest sense, and occupying the last slot of the valency), giving e.g.

person-QM = "who?"
thing**-QM = "what?"
thing**-QM-ADJ = "which?"
because-QA = "why?"
like-QA = "how?"
when-QA = "when?"
place-QM = "where?" (nominal)
at-QA = "where?" (adverbial)

Yes/no questions are marked with a separate word from its own interrogative root. So there are three interrogative morphemes in my language: QM, QA, and this root.

But you could easily do without ANY interrogative morpheme, provided that the language otherwise has full expressive power.





* You could paraphrase interrogatives without using imperatives or any esoteric alternative, but that would be too verbose, especially for your elves.

** The language has separate roots for "thing (non-person)" and "thing (entity)", and consequently different words for "what?" depending on the intended meaning.

[Czwartek]

You could easily do without ANY interrogative (not just pronouns) in the language. It's trivially easy to paraphrase it with imperatives*: "Specify the reason you ate the bird!" = "Why did you eat the bird?"

Ithkuil does the same thing, or at least that's how it's described on the site. In reality it just adds a single consonant to one of the adjuncts. You could freely interpret that as an interrogative-marker or one which simply asks the addressee to confirm or deny the truth of the statement.

I was thinking of something similar to what many of you have suggested for my criminally neglected verbless conlang. The idea is that there are suffixes applicable to any noun, which asks for more information about the noun in question. One asks for the identity, or name, of a specific thing, person, place, time, etc. Examples are, where 'int1' means 'interrogative pronoun 1':

Who did you see? - person-accusative-int1 your-eyes-in-front-of (past-tense-adjunct)
Where are you? - Location-inessive-int1 you (present-tense-adjunct)
When are we going? - Time-int1 here-elative we (future-tense-adjunct)
Why are we here? - Reason-dative-int1 here-inessive we
What did you eat? - Food-int1/thing-int1 you-illative (past-tense-adjunct)

The second interrogative suffix will mean 'what kind of?' and asks for a more general description of the queried subject, rather than just an identification. The above sentences with this adjunct would translate as:

What kind of person did you see? Describe the person you saw.
What kind of place are we going to? Describe where we are going.
What kind of time are we going? Will I have time to ... before? (or any instance where you're not asking for a specific measurement of time)
For what kind of reason could we be here?
What kind of thing did you eat?

And the third interrogative would be used in multiple-choice questions, like saying 'which' when asking somebody to choose from a limited selection.

Which person did you see? (as in a police line-up)
Which place are we going to?
When are we going? (eg: now, in an hour or tomorrow?)
For which out of these possible reasons could we be here?
Which out of these items did you eat?

Such a system could be useful for dictating the exact type of expected response. for example at a restaurant, if the waiter says 'what would you like to eat?' using the first interrogative suffix, it would mean that virtually anything you say is available. If he uses the second suffix, only a vague response would be appropriate, such as 'something vegetarian' or 'something Mexican'. The third suffix in a restaurant would be the most likely, since the choice is usually going to be from a limited menu.

These suffixes can be used with any noun and and grammatical case (of which there will be many).

You could also use this system for ask multiple questions at once, for example a parent could ask:

What kind of party is it, who will be there, what will they be drinking, which of your schoolmates is hosting it, and what time will you be home?
Person-plural-int1 drink-plural-int2 schoolmate-genitive-int3 house-inessive party-inessive-int2 time-inessive-int1 home-illative you (future-tense-adjunct)

So in short, yes, of course a language with no interrogative pronouns would work. And the options for alternatives are virtually endless.

[Ossicone]

I tried to do something like this with Inyauk. What I came up with was having a question prefix which attaches to the element in question. The only difference between a yes/no Q is if the questioned element is specific or not.

So basically morphologically complex interrogative pronouns?

If I understand you, then yes and no. If I don't understand you, yes?

They are complex in that there are multiple morphemes.
They're not specific words used only for questions, and they're not pronouns they're just nouns. They don't mean which, what, where they just indicate an unknown. There are two affixes, one for verbs and one for nouns.
Anyway it works well since Inyauk is agglutinating, so adding another affix fits nicely. :-D

[Maximillian]

Or they are syntactically discontinuous complex interrogative pronouns.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. =]

[Trailsend]

this is another conlang i'm thinking up for fun (actually it'll be one of several i think up for a conworld, probably wont be fleshed out much). and i thought of some odd features for it. one of them being that there are no interrogative pronouns.

a question is formed simply by stating a normal sentence with one of two markers: one asks if the question is true or false, the other simply asks for details about the scenario that the person mentions. for example, 'how are you' is simply:

question-marker you(singuler) fare(verb).

the only issue i could think of is being unable to differentiate between 'how did you do it?' and 'why did you do it?'. the marker essentially just asks for any information related to the topic. it's sorta similar to the japanese topic marker (mostly in how certain questions are formed with it, such as konnichi wa and namae wa)

would this actually work?

I do exactly this for Feayran.

The hypothetical "question-marker you(singuler) go(verb)" can mean "Where do you go?", "Where are you coming from?", "Why do you go [there]?" and "How do yo go [there]?". Too ambiguous. =\
Maybe you can use specifying words, like for "Why do you go?" one would say "question-marker you go reason", but "question-marker you go way" for "How do yo go?".

And I do almost exactly this.

The particle tií is placed after the constituent being questioned to indicate a yes-no question.

Mneruheshotháku tií? Do you have a name?

The particle híi indicates an open-ended question.

Mneruheshotháku hií? What's your name?

The fact that híi gets used for all kinds of WH questions causes a lot less trouble than I thought it would. It's almost always perfectly obvious from context what question is being asked. However, it also helps that Feayran likes to mark everything and its sister on the verb, with disambiguating agreements out the wazoo. So, you end up with "[verb] hií?" where the verb contains markings to agree with a bunch of "definite," already-established constituents, and then one marker which is new. It's therefore clear that híi? is asking for more information about the new marker. So,

Eùnurùukákuri híi?

could mean, "Who sent you back?" "When did they send you back?" "Where did they send you back from?" "Where did they send you back to?" "What made them send you back?" or "What did they send you back to do?" among others. If it isn't obvious in the context of the conversation what information you're looking for, you can add additional markers to highlight what information you're missing. E.g.,

Eùnurùukákusùori híi? They-sent-you-back-for-that-purpose what?

[jal]

a question is formed simply by stating a normal sentence with one of two markers: one asks if the question is true or false, the other simply asks for details about the scenario that the person mentions.

The former is attested in e.g. Polish: the particle "czy" signals a polar question. The latter could work, but you need a way to signal what details you want to know. This can be a gap in case you have an otherwise gapless syntax, or a topic indicator and a generic (pro)noun or whatever, but remember that interrogative pronouns have a syntactic role besides a semantic one, so you must provide for that.


JAL