Interrogativity: A Colloquium on the Grammar, Typology and Pragmatics of Questions in Seven Diverse Languages, Cleveland, Ohio, October 5th 1981-May 3rd 1982

309 Pages·1984·23.655 MB·

by  William Chisholm (Ed.), Louis T. Milic (Ed.), John A.C. Greppin (Ed.)

INTERROGATIVITY
TYPOLOGICAL STUDIES IN LANGUAGE (TSL)
A companion series to the journal "STUDIES IN LANGUAGE"
Honorary Editor: Joseph H. Greenberg
General Editor: T. Givón
Editorial Board:
Alton Becker (Michigan) Margaret Langdon (San Diego)
Wallace Chafe (Berkeley) Charles Li (Santa Barbara)
Bernard Comrie (Los Angeles) Johanna Nichols (Berkeley)
Gerard Diffloth (Chicago) Andrew Pawley (Auckland)
R.M.W.Dixon (Canberra) Frans Plank (Hanover)
John Haiman (Winnipeg) Dan Slobin (Berkeley)
Paul Hopper (Binghamton) Sandra Thompson (Los Angeles)
Volumes in this series will be functionally and typologically oriented, cover­
ing specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide variety
of languages and language typologies. The orientation of the volumes will be
substantive rather than formal, with the aim of investigating universais of
human language via as broadly defined a data base as possible, leaning toward
cross-linguistic, diachronic, developmental and live-discourse data. The
series is, in spirit as well as in fact, a continuation of the tradition initiated by
C. Li (Word Order and Word Order Change, Subject and Topic, Mechanisms
for Syntactic Change) and continued by T. Givón (Discourse and Syntax) and
P. Hopper (Tense and Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics).
Volume 4
William S. Chisholm Jr., Louis T. Milic and John A.C. Greppin (eds.)
INTERR  GA TIVITY:
A Colloquium on the Grammar, Typology and Pragmatics
of Questions in Seven Diverse Languages
INTERROGATIVITY:
A COLLOQUIUM ON THE
GRAMMAR, TYPOLOGY AND PRAGMATICS
OF QUESTIONS IN SEVEN DIVERSE LANGUAGES
Cleveland, Ohio, October 5th 1981 - May 3rd 1982
WILLIAM S. CHISHOLM Jr., editor
LOUIS T. MILIC, associate editor
JOHN A.C. GREPPIN, consulting editor
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
1984
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Interrogativity: a colloquium on the grammar, typology, and pragmatics of questions in
seven diverse languages, Cleveland, Ohio, October 5th, 1982-May 3rd, 1982.
(Typological studies in language, ISSN 0167-7373; v. 4)
Written versions of talks presented at the Colloquium on Interrogativity.
Includes bibliographies and index.
Contents: Introduction - Interrogativity in: Russian / Bernard Comrie. Mandarin /
Charles N. Li & Sandra A. Thompson. Georgian / Alice C. Harris. Bengali / [etc.]
1. Grammar, Comparative and general -- Interrogative - Congresses. I. Chisholm, Wil­
liam. II. Milic, Louis . III. Greppin, John A.C. IV. Colloquium on Interrogativity
(1981-1982: Cleveland State University) V. Series.
P299.I57I57 1984 415 84-9302
ISBN 0-915027-02-X (U.S. hb.)
ISBN 0-915027-03-8 (U.S. pb.)
ISBN 90-272-2868-X (European hb.)
ISBN 90-272-2864-7 (European pb.)
© Copyright 1984 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Interrogativity in
Russian
Bernard Comrie 7
Mandarin
Charles N. Li & Sandra A. Thompson 47
Georgian
Alice C. Harris 63
Bengali
P.K. Saha 113
Japanese
John Hinds 145
West Greenlandic
Jerrold M. Sadock 189
Ute
T. Givón 215
Plenary Session
(including T. Givón: "The Speech-Act Continuum") 245
General Bibliography 289
Index 297

INTRODUCTION
The papers gathered in this volume are the written versions of talks pre­
sented by several scholars who participated in the year-long Colloquium on
Interrogativity at Cleveland State University, October, 1981 — May, 1982. In
planning the Colloquium, the editors felt that a cross-linguistic study of a
coherent linguistic topic would contribute importantly to the search in linguis­
tics for a broader and yet more detailed understanding of language. The indi­
vidual papers would examine the interrelationships among the grammatical,
typological, semantic, and pragmatics aspects of interrogativity in a single
language; the collected papers would articulate the cross-currents.
We sought scholars of established reputation and were pleased when
those whom we invited agreed to participate. The schedule was as follows:
Bernard Comrie USC Russian October, 1981
Sandra Thompson and UCLA Madarin November, 1981
Charles Li UCSB (The speaker was Sandra Thompson.)
Alice Harris Vanderbilt Georgian December, 1981
P.K. Saha CWRU Bengali January, 1982
Eyamba Bokamba Illinois Bantu February, 1982
John Hinds Penn State Japanese March, 1982
Jerrold Sadock Chicago W. Greenlandic April, 1982
T. Givón Oregon Ute May, 1982
Each speaker had a two-hour morning session in which to present the basic
areal and sociolinguístic facts and the essentials of the overall design of the
language being described, and a two-hour afternoon session to describe the
grammar and semantics of the interrogative system. We present the written
forms of the presentations seriatim. At the end of the book the reader will find
an edited transcript of the Round Table discussion on interrogativity held on
May 4, 1982. Those attending this plenary session were Bernard Comrie,
Charles Li, Alice Harris, T. Givón, Eyamba Bokamba, P.K. Saha, and
Grover Hudson (substituting for Jerrold Sadock.) John Hinds, like Professor
Sadock, could not attend because of a schedule conflict. There was, in fact,
2 INTRODUCTION
one other alteration of the schedule. Professor Givón did not appear for the
last regularly scheduled colloquium on May 3 due to the vagaries of airline
schedules. He did arrive the night of May 3, and was asked to prepare some
"summary remarks" for the opening of the plenary session. His "The Speech-
Act Continuum" paper, inserted first in the round table transcript, grew out of
those remarks. The tape recordings of the round table discussion were edited
with the intention of preserving as much of the conversational style as the
prior requirement of coherence would allow.
Though the individual papers are not themselves comparative works, the
volume is a comparative study. Such a volume is what the editors envisioned.
The reader can peruse not only the broad and narrow attributes of inter-
rogativity in diverse languages—he can trace the cross-linguistic properties of
it. To this latter end, though the editors imposed no strict organizational
scheme for the presentation of topics in the several papers or even a list of top­
ics, we have prepared a detailed index which directs the reader to all sections
of all papers by topic.
Each paper presents, first, the basic genetic facts about the language de­
scribed, its more recent provenience, facts about numbers of speakers and
where they live, writing systems, and related areal and sociolinguístic points.
Generally, an overview of the typological hallmarks follows together with a
sketch of the grammar broadly construed. Finally, the grammar of inter-
rogativity is described and the semantics and pragmatics of it are explored.
The papers are valuable separately, we believe, for their thorough ac­
counts of the processes of question formation and for the exemplifying data of
language-specific facts. They are the more valuable perhaps as puzzle pieces
to be turned in the mind's hand so that a coherent picture of interrogativity as
a principle of language can be fitted together. Explicit analyses of the inner
workings of interrogative locutions and illocutions have only recently been ac­
complished for languages like Ute and West Greenlandic. Even so, the under­
standing we have of the structure of more familiar languages like Bengali and
Russian has lately been increased by virtue of the validation of more insightful
and productive approaches to linguistic method. And considering these
points, it may not be far from the truth to say that we are looking for the first
time at the forms and the functions of interrogative expressions that the
speakers of these languages use. The investigative and reportorial style of the
accounts assembled in this volume pays careful attention to the demonstrable
structural facts and bold attention to speech acts in the real world where
people with varying purposes and needs talk to each other in varying psycho­
social settings.
INTRODUCTION 3
Typological studies strive to answer questions about where and how in
their systems diverse languages respond to the call from language to conform
to the network of possible functions and structures — where there is diversity,
but also how there are patterns of correspondence. One begins such a study
armed with the reasonable assumption that there are bizarre language sys­
tems which will never be empirically attested—for instance, a system that in­
vests nothing in syntax, or more to the point, a system which fails to distin­
guish interrogatives from imperatives or from declaratives. What one does
find is a language that orders its prime syntactic constituents with subject (S)
first, verb (V) second, and object (O) last — and adjective (A) before (N) as
well as genitive (G) before noun. Also, the language:
has postpositions
is agglutinative
has case
is ergative
has screeves (See Harris, p. 65)
has interrogative intonation
has enclitics
has particles
has Q-words
and another language that:
is SOXV
is NA and GN
is polysynthetic
has case
is ergative
has interrogative mood
has interrogative intonation
has enclitics
has Q-words
These facts established and in hand, together with similar assays, make the