7. Predicates, arguments, and clauses
7.4. Statements, questions, and commands
Besides classifying clauses based on their structural position, we can also classify them based on their function. We will discuss three kinds of function here: declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. Note that the main clause and the embedded clause of the same sentence might have different functions.
Declaratives
Declarative clauses make a statement. Most clauses are declarative.
| (1) | a. | I like chocolate. |
| b. | My father was going to the store yesterday. | |
| c. | The plane will land in Frankfurt tomorrow. |
In English, embedded declarative clauses can be introduced with the complementizer that or no complementizer at all.
| (2) | a. | It’s not unusual [that I like chocolate]. |
| b. | Jennie told you [my father was going to the store yesterday]. | |
| c. | I expect [that the plane will land in Frankfurt tomorrow]. |
Interrogatives
Interrogatives clauses make a question. There are two main kinds: polar questions and content questions.
Polar questions
Polar questions, also called yes-no questions, are questions that can be answered with yes, no, or maybe. In English, main clause polar questions are formed by subject-auxiliary inversion. That is, the auxiliary verb and the subject switch places compared to the equivalent declarative clause.
| (3) | a. | Do I like chocolate? |
| b. | Was my father going to the store yesterday? | |
| c. | Will the plane land in Frankfurt tomorrow? |
English embedded polar questions do not have subject-auxiliary inversion and are introduced by the complementizers if or whether.
| (4) | a. | You wonder [whether I like chocolate]. |
| b. | Jennie asked [if father was going to the store yesterday]. | |
| c. | I’m not sure [whether the plane will land in Frankfurt tomorrow]. |
According to WALS, only about 1% of languages form polar questions by changing the order of words, like English does. The most common way of forming polar questions is to use a question particle, which is the strategy used by 61% of the languages in the sample on WALS. An example of a question particle in Maybrat, a language isolate of Indonesia, is shown in (5). In Maybrat, the question particle a appears at the end of the clause.
(5) Maybrat (Dol 1999: 200, as cited in Dryer 2013)
ana m-amo Kumurkek a
3PL 3-go Kumurkek Q
‘Are they going to Kumurkek?’
Other common strategies for marking polar questions in the world’s languages are to use intonation (18%) or verbal morphology (17%) (Dryer 2013). An example of a language that uses verbal morphology is Hunzib, a Nakh-Daghestanian language spoken in the North Caucasus region of Russia, near the border with Georgia, as shown in (6).
|
(6) eƛ’e-čó-y |
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go-PRES.1/2-Q |
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|
‘Are you going?’ |
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Content questions
Content questions, also called wh-questions, are questions that cannot be answered with yes, no, or maybe. In English, main clause content questions are formed by subject-auxiliary inversion and by moving a question word to the beginning of the clause. The question words in (7) are in bold. Question words are also often called wh-words.
| (7) | a. | Who likes chocolate? |
| b. | What do I like? | |
| c. | Where was my father going yesterday? | |
| d. | Why was my father going to the store yesterday? | |
| e. | Whose father was going to the store yesterday? | |
| f. | When will the plane land in Frankfurt? | |
| g. | How will the plane land in Frankfurt tomorrow? | |
| h. | Which airport will the plane land at tomorrow? |
Embedded content questions in English do not have subject-auxiliary inversion, but the question word still moves to the beginning of the clause.
| (8) | a. | I asked [who likes chocolate]. |
| b. | They wondered [what I like]. | |
| c. | We wanted to know [where my father was going yesterday]. | |
| d. | I questioned [why my father was going to the store yesterday]. | |
| e. | They asked [whose father was going to the store yesterday]. | |
| f. | We were wondering [when the plane will land in Frankfurt]. | |
| g. | My kid is asking [how the plane will land in Frankfurt tomorrow]. | |
| h. | They need to know [which airport the plane will land at tomorrow]. |
Many other languages also move the question word to the beginning of the clause to form content questions, but in other languages, the question word stays in its argument position. This is called wh-in situ. Mandarin is one example of a wh-in situ language, as shown in (9). The declarative sentence in (9a) has the same word order as the interrogative sentence in (9b), unlike the English equivalents.
| (9) | a. | Yuehan xihuan Mali. |
| John like Mary | ||
| ‘John likes Mary.’ | ||
| b. | Yuehan xihuan shei? | |
| John like who | ||
| ‘Who does John like?’ |
(Dong 2009: 11)
Imperatives
Imperatives make a command. In English, imperatives have a silent subject and the verb appears in its bare form.
| (10) | a. | Eat chocolate! |
| b. | Go to the store! | |
| c. | Take a plane to Frankfurt tomorrow! |
Mixing functions
A complex sentence can have main and embedded clauses with different functions, as shown in Table 1.
| Main declarative | Main polar question | Main content question | Main imperative | |
| Embedded declarative | Ben said [that Ava is hungry]. | Did Ben say [that Ava was hungry]? | When did Ben say [that Ava was hungry]? | Tell them [that Ava is hungry]! |
| Embedded polar question | Ben wondered [if Ava was hungry]. | Did Ben ask [if Ava was hungry]? | When did Ben wonder [if Ava was hungry]? | Ask [if Ava is hungry]! |
| Embedded content question | Ben asked [what Ava wants for lunch]. | Did Ben wonder [what Ava wants for lunch]? | Why did Ben ask [what Ava wants for lunch]? | Ask [what Ava wants for lunch]! |
Key takeaways
- Declarative clauses make a statement, interrogative clauses ask a question, and imperative clauses give a command.
- Interrogative clauses come in two types: polar and content questions.
- A complex sentence can have main and embedded clauses with different functions.
Check yourself!
References and further resources
Academic sources
Dryer, Matthew. Polar questions. In World Atlas of Language Structures Online, ed. Matthew Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. https://wals.info/chapter/116
Hongyuan, Dong. 2009. Issues in the semantics of Mandarin questions. PhD thesis, Cornell University.
