The Interrogative Feature and the Generative Mechanism of Interrogative Sentences
SI Luo-hong · Journal of Anhui University · 2012
Interrogative is one of the basic categories of human language,one of the hot issues in language research.In contrast with English interrogative sentences,Chinese ones are more varied in form.We believe the differences come from the difference in the parameter of interrogative feature.Voice questions,yes-no questions,positive-and-negative questions and ke(可)+VP questions are pheno-mena revealing a weak feature which uses different syntactic operations in different syntactic positions.These four forms are essentially the same in nature.The relationship of the interrogative sentences in Chinese will be analyzed afresh from the study of the generative mechanism of general questions.Wh-questions and choice questions can be classified as lexical interrogatives,while the other four can be classified as syntactic interrogatives.Contentious issues like the characteristics of ke(可)+VP questions and ne(呢) will be solved.