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Can polar interrogation be marked by tone?

Summary

This feature explores whether a language employs tone to differentiate between declarative and polar interrogative sentences. In the context of this feature, 'tone' refers to pitch variations tied to specific positions within a word or a clause, and not to global intonation patterns affecting the whole clause. A language exhibits this feature if one or more words in a declarative sentence can alter their tone to convert the sentence into a polar question.

Procedure

1. Determine if there is lexical or grammatical tone in the language (other than for polar interrogation)
2. if so, and if one of the words in a declarative sentence can change its tone to change the sentence into a polar question then code 1.

Examples

Afar (ISO 639-3: aar, Glottolog: afar1241)

Coded 1: In Afar, tonal variation in consultative forms (a type of polar interrogative) can be traced back to a difference in the tonal pattern of the subjunctive from which they are derived. (Bliese 1977: 148–151)

’ab-u ‘that I do it’ (subjunctive from ab’aa-o) 
a’b-oô ‘shall I do it?’ (consultative from ab’aa-oô) (Bliese 1977: 149)

Note: In the example above, the 'o' in the subjunctive form does not undergo raising to 'u' due to the addition of the question length and tone marker in the consultative form.

This example illustrates how languages with lexical or grammatical tone (outside the context of polar interrogation) can utilize tonal shifts to mark polar interrogation.

Further reading

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013b. Polar questions. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

References

Bliese, Loren Frecerick. 1977. A generative grammar study of Afar. Arlington: University of Texas. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Related Features

• GB257 Can polar interrogation be marked by intonation only?
• GB260 Can polar interrogation be indicated by a special word order?
• GB262 Is there a clause-initial polar interrogative particle?
• GB263 Is there a clause-final polar interrogative particle?
• GB264 Is there a polar interrogative particle that most commonly occurs neither clause-initially nor clause-finally?
• GB285 Can polar interrogation be marked by a question particle and verbal morphology?
• GB286 Can polar interrogation be indicated by overt verbal morphology only?
• GB297 Can polar interrogation be indicated by a V-not-V construction?

Patron

Jay Latarche and Jeremy Collins