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This article discusses the properties of interrogative structures biased in the set of their possible answers by the particle po in Camuno. In declarative structures, po signals that according to the speaker, a proposition p is surprisingly controversial in the utterance world w. In interrogative structures, the same particle identifies the only subset of 〚p〛f[\kern-2pt[ {p]\kern-2pt] }^{f}, the set of focus alternatives to p, that can satisfy the existential presupposition introduced by the question. However, po additionally signals that such a subset is non-factual, i.e., controversial, in w. A characterization of po as an element operating on sets of alternatives offers an important tool to investigate the numerous pragmatic readings conveyed by po and account for the restrictions in its distribution. The semantic properties of the po-interrogatives can, in fact, capture the mirative and counterfactual readings also attested in cognate forms in neighboring varieties. Thus, this analysis represents an important step in exploring a possible unified account.

In this contribution, the sentence type (declarative or interrogative), the disjunctor or, the infinitive mode of the verb to be as well as the lexical meaning encoded in it are addressed with regard to some translations of the move that opens Hamlet’s soliloquy, in the Third Act of the tragedy named after him. In the description, the translated passage is quoted and a retranslation into English is proposed, so that the choice made by the translator is better understood. As is evident, this choice is partly related to the architecture of the language into which the text is translated, and partly motivated by the translator’s own interpretation. Moreover, certain features of the language structure deserve to be considered in order to ask whether and how a language system influences the interpretation itself. The legacy of Coseriu’s insights invites us to rethink the activity of translation as a form of knowledge that can access a truly interlinguistic level (übereinzelsprachliche Ebene).

In Russian and Persian, the category of indirect evidentiality points out to some unreliable source of information. The category of admirativity expresses unexpected and new information gained by the speaker. Such interrogative sentences convey combine admirativity with diff erent modal meanings. Foreign students of Russian often fi nd it hard to distinguish these meanings in Russian interrogative sentences. The authors compared Russian and Persian interrogative sentences and the linguistics tools that refl ect the admirative category with an assessment of modal meanings of possibility and motivation. This is the fi rst research of the category of admirativity in the Persian language and the fi rst publication on the comparison of Russian and Persian interrogative sentences, as well as on the relationship between admirativity and modal meanings in Russian and Persian interrogative sentences. The research objective was to perform a comparative analysis of admirativity in Russian and Persian interrogative sentences and to study the situations in which this meaning conveys the surprise of the speaker from the availability or lack of possibility to perform a certain action. In both languages, admirativity can accompany the feeling of motivation in the subject of the speech act. The findings can be useful in teaching Russian as a foreign language.

It is traditionally considered that in French the use of interrogatives is made according to their sociolinguistic values. In this paper we discuss an alternative approach in terms of 'interactive potential', a concept defined as the capacity of grammatical structures to facilitate verbal exchanges between interactants. After the analysis of 1659 yes/no interrogative structures found in the Swiss SMS Corpus (Stark, Ueberwasser & Ruef 2009–2015), we argue that it is possible to distinguish two types of structures: (i) 'strong' variants with a 'high interactive potential': their use is better adapted to general needs of interactants in informal communication; (ii) 'weak' variants with a 'low' or 'moderate interactive potential': their use is restricted to specific types of discourse contexts and syntactic constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the order of emergence of comprehension of wh-questions and polar-questions. We argue that considerations of complexity and input favour the earlier emergence of polar questions; on the other hand, if one assumes that question understanding emerges as a consequence of interactive learning this favours (certain) wh-questions, as well as a small subclass of polar questions. We offer corpus evidence from the Providence corpus that (a certain class of) wh-questions are in fact understood earlier than the polar-questions. We test this observation using elicitation studies on German and Chinese speaking children. Our results confirm the finding from the corpus study and are in line with an interactive learning perspective for the emergence of understanding of questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wh-question words are linguistic devices which are either associated with the information structure of the sentences or are regarded as signs for the kind of information provided by the sentences. Wh-questions have been extensively studied for their general structure and Wh-movement. The present study aimed to investigate how Wh-questions have changed overtime. It also aimed at exploring the current status of Wh-questions in modern Persian. To do so, a set of prose literary works from the 4th century up to the contemporary time were analyzed. It was found that two types of sluices have been commonly used in modern Persian; a) Wh-in situ b) displaced Wh. The excessive use of sluices not only leads to Information Focusing, but also results in Contrastive Focus via Wh-Movement which could move the focus to another phrase. The results showed that the Persian Wh-questions have changed overtime in terms of Wh-movement and the kinds of information structures.

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