Yes-No Questions in Croatian Church Slavonic Cover Image

Jestno-niječna pitanja u hrvatskom crkvenoslavenskom jeziku
Yes-No Questions in Croatian Church Slavonic

Author(s): Milan Mihaljević
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Hrvatsko filološko društvo

Summary/Abstract: The author describes the syntax of yes-no questions in Croatian Church Slavonic. In his corpus there are no questions without an interrogative particle. The particle which occurs most frequently is the particle li which can introduce all kinds of questions. This means that this particle doesn't determine whether the question is information seeking, rhetorical, dubitative, presumptive, etc. The author assumes that li is a clitic interrogative complementizer which assigns a [+F(ocus)] feature to the phrase which occupies the SpecCP position. If this position is empty, than the verb from I moves to the complementizer position to host li. The particle eda usually introduces rhetorical and dubitative questions and less frequently presumptive and emotively colored questions which express surprise and wonder. Conditional conjunctions ašće and ako, as well as disjunctive conjunctions ili and ali, can be interrogative particles. Conditional conjunctions usually introduce indirect questions, while disjunctive conjunctions introduce questions which express unexpectedness, surprise or wonder. In Croatian Church Slavonic questions may also be introduced by the particle da. This particle is usually not an interrogative complementizer, but it has the function of intensification. The questions beginning with the adversative conjunction a do not form a separate category of questions, because a has the usual function of conjunction, the same as in other sentence types.

  • Issue Year: 1997
  • Issue No: 43-44
  • Page Range: 191-209
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Croatian