Questions in Northern Sotho

  • This article gives an overview of the marking of polar and constituent questions in Northern Sotho, a Bantu language of South Africa. It thereby provides a contribution to the typological investigation of sentence types in the world’s languages. As will be shown, Northern Sotho follows cross-linguistic tendencies in marking interrogative sentences: It uses intonation as main indicator in polar questions and question words as main indicator in constituent questions. Nevertheless, it also shows interesting language-specific variation, e.g. with respect to the location of raised intonation in polar questions, the presence of two pragmatically distinct question particles in polar questions, or a split in the formation of constituent questions based on the grammatical function of the questioned constituent.

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Metadaten
Author:Sabine Zerbian
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-309585
URL:http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/189.html
ISSN:1435-9588
ISSN:0947-7055
Parent Title (English):Papers in Bantu grammar and description / editors: Laura J. Downing, Lutz Marten & Sabine Zerbian, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin, 2006, : ZAS papers in linguistics ; Nr. 43
Publisher:Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung
Place of publication:Berlin
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2013/11/14
Year of first Publication:2006
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2013/11/14
GND Keyword:Syntax; Sotho; Interrogativsatz
Volume:43
Page Number:24
First Page:257
Last Page:280
HeBIS-PPN:381258173
Sammlungen:Linguistik
Linguistik-Klassifikation:Linguistik-Klassifikation: Syntax
Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte:ZAS papers in linguistics : ZASPiL / ZASPiL 43 = Papers in Bantu grammar and description
:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-306854
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht