Symposium B5 Call

There are several approaches that categorize the types of clauses in the known (natural) languages. One common classification concentrates on the relation between the illocutionary force of the utterances, i.e., the speech acts performed by the speaker in the utterance, and the syntactic structure and prosody of the clauses leading to the differentiation of at least three universal clause types, namely, declaratives, imperatives and interrogatives.

Root clause interrogatives are often differentiated on the basis of the typical answer they require. The main subtypes are polar questions (which can be answered by yes/no), alternative questions (which themselves include alternative options for an answer) and constituent (or content) questions (which expect an answer specified by the interrogative phrase they contain). These question types are marked by various different strategies across languages.

Although in recent years there has been a steady growth in the study of the syntax of Uralic languages, interrogativity and interrogative constructions have not been a matter of systematic research yet. The present symposium aims to provide a forum for original research on constructions in the Uralic languages which are typically, but not exclusively, used for requesting information, i.e., constructions used as questions. We invite submissions addressing questions in the following major topics in particular:

  1. Intonation. In many languages, the intonational patterns of interrogatives differ from those of declarative clauses. Considering the interrogative intonation patterns cross-linguistically, the following questions might be raised: is there a dedicated intonational pattern of the different question-types in the Uralic languages? If so, is it only intonation that differentiates interrogatives from other clause types? How do different pragmatic uses of interrogatives differ in their intonation?
  2. Morphemes. In some languages, there are morphemes employed for marking interrogativity. The interrogative element can usually be a particle, a tag, an inflectional suffix – such as the interrogative mood marker in some Samoyedic languages – and (even) an interrogative verb. New questions which have not been addressed before may be raised. These may include, but are not limited to: the availability of such interrogative morphemes, their position in the clause, their polarity, and their defectivities.
    Additionally, in some languages it is the declarative clause type that is marked by a marker, which is unavailable in interrogative clauses. Are there such examples in the Uralic languages?
  3. Syntax. In this domain the central empirical question to explore is what differences, if any, the various interrogative constructions show in their syntax as compared to declarative patterns. The following topics may be highlighted: What is the distribution of interrogative phrases in constituent questions (e.g. fronted, optionally fronted, in situ)? Is there a dedicated position for syntactically marked interrogative phrases? If so, how does the position of interrogative phrase(s) relate to the position of focus in the language, i.e., do these elements occupy the same or different syntactic positions? What characterizes the marking of focus and negation in polar and alternative questions? If adjacency of interrogative phrases to the verb figures in the syntax of constituent questions, how can it be captured, and how can exceptions be explained? What syntactic strategies are available to questions containing multiple interrogative phrases? What asymmetries, if any, do root and non-root contexts exhibit with regard to the syntactic marking strategies in interrogative clauses of any type? How does syntactic marking interact with morphological and prosodic marking within a question type? How do different pragmatic uses of interrogatives differ in their syntax?

Bearing in mind that the main aim of the symposium is to provide cross-linguistically comparable descriptions of interrogative constructions in the Uralic languages, submissions employing a typological approach are especially (but not exclusively) encouraged.

Organizers:
Nikolett Mus (Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Katalin Mády (Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Balázs Surányi (Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences & Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
Contact person: Nikolett Mus (mus.nikolett@nytud.mta.hu)