Interrogative Mood (Part 3 Re: New project) Saul Epstein Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:48:01 -0600 0328 - Question and Question Mark Saul Epstein Fri, 16 Jan 1998 12:57:49 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 3:10 PM >At 01:18 PM 1/13/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: > >>>>And hence my clarification that I meant acts a question mark, >>>>not as a question. >>> >>>Well, I guess I did not find that very clear-ifying ;-) >> >>Then, or now? I could spend more time on that, which would certainly be >>more constructive. > >Yes, please, let us return to linguistics, all this philosophy makes >my head ache. All right. Consider the following A: Louis is king in France B: is Louis king in France C: He is the king of France D: who is the king of France In each of these two pairs, the first sentence is in the indicative mood (making it a statement) while the second is in the interrogative mood (making it a question). The sentences aren't punctuated, though, and the written form conveys no tone of voice. So what marks the difference between the indicative and the interrogative? In the first pair, the difference is purely one of word order. The normal word order in English is subject-verb-object, which A obeys. In B, the order is verb-subject-object. This is the word order for a "true or false" question, somewhat complicated by English's reliance on participles -- especially in the present tense (e,g. "Are we having fun yet?"). In the second pair, the difference is the substitution of a personal pronoun "he," referring to a known person, with the interrogative pronoun "who," referring specifically to the unknown person whose identification will answer the question. Words like "who" act like blank lines in a "fill in the blank" question, and they are all derived from a single base form, modified to fit the part of speech about which the question is being asked. English also modifies word order for such questions, putting the unknown term in the initial position, followed by the verb, the subject, and the object (e,g. "Where does the king live?"). So there are two kinds of questions here. The first form could be stated evaluate x where x is an expression whose truth or falsehood the speaker would like to know. The second could be stated return x, if x_y where x is an unknown expression, _ is a known relationship, and y is a known expression. Both kinds of questions are labelled in English (and other languages) with the question mark, . The mark doesn't say anything about the kind of question being asked, only that one is being asked. And though we have no examples of the second, "fill in the blank," type of question, and no indication of how to construct interrogative pronouns or articles, I have been assuming that the interrogative particle acts in a fashion analogous to the question mark, and to interrogative particles in those Terran languages that possess one (I can't think of them at the moment). This does not need to be the case, of course. ---------- 0329 - Re: Question and Question Mark Rob Zook Fri, 16 Jan 1998 13:15:51 -0600 At 12:57 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: >So there are two kinds of questions here. The first form could be stated > > evaluate x > >where x is an expression whose truth or falsehood the speaker would like >to know. The second could be stated >indication of how to construct interrogative pronouns or articles, I have >been assuming that the interrogative particle acts in a fashion >analogous to the question mark, and to interrogative particles in those >Terran languages that possess one (I can't think of them at the moment). Well, then I believe we are operating on the same wavelength then. If I understand you then, in your terms, one could also gloss qa X, as "evaluate x", correct? So we need an interoggative particle for at least, each of the traditional seven questions: which, what, where, when, who, why and how. ---------- 0330 - Re: Question and Question Mark Saul Epstein Fri, 16 Jan 1998 14:32:51 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Friday, January 16, 1998 1:39 PM >At 12:57 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: > >>I have >>been assuming that the interrogative particle acts in a fashion >>analogous to the question mark, and to interrogative particles in those >>Terran languages that possess one (I can't think of them at the moment). > >Well, then I believe we are operating on the same wavelength then. If >I understand you then, in your terms, one could also gloss qa X, as >"evaluate x", correct? Only because x is a complete statement. might be better glossed as, "tell me," or "I ask you." >So we need an interoggative particle for at least, each of the >traditional seven questions: which, what, where, when, who, why and how. Or an interrogative version of indicative pronouns and articles. These question words can all be stated is kinds of "which" or "what:" which thing, which place, which time, which person, which origin (or cause), which method (or route). These have the not coincidental character of deriving from masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns in the various cases who(he or she)/which(this)/what(that) nominative whom(him or her)/which/what accusative by whom/by which/how instrumental to whom/to which/why or wherefore dative from whom/from which/why ablative whose/of which genitive in whom/where locative Since may be a bound or a free particle, it may be the case that a free , particularly at the beginning of a sentence or clause, indicates a true-false question, while a bound attached to a pronoun makes that pronoun represent a blank in a fill-in-the-blank question. qaw who(m) qawl who(f) qan which or what qawhi whom(m) qawlhi whom(f) qanhi which or what qawti by whom(m) qawlti by whom(f) qanti by which or how qawha to whom(m) qawlha to whom(f) qanha to which or why qawtca from whom(m) qawltca from whom(f) qantca from which or why qawat whose(m) qawlat whose(f) qanat of which qawhe in whom(m) qawlhe in whom(f) qanhe in which or where So, "Where are you going?" could be something like s'imroi qanha thou-go ?-it-DATIVE (th'imroy) cikaarha (I-go) Shikahr-DATIVE ---------- End Part 3 -- from Saul Epstein locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus "Surakri' ow'phacur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pharka the's'hi surakecha'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at