Content Interrogatives in Pichis Ashéninca

Most languages in the world distinguish various content interrogatives, like English who, what, where, when, which, how, and why. However, Givón (1990; 2001) has claimed that in Pichis Ashéninca, an Arawakan language from Peru, there is only one content interrogative, tsica, that covers all possible interrogative meanings. In this article, I argue against this analysis. Based on a corpus of questions in Pichis Ashéninca, extracted from texts, I argue that most content questions do indeed use the word tsica, but the interrogative meaning is further specified by the construction in which it is used. When the different interrogative constructions are properly distinguished, Pichis Ashéninca distinguishes almost all interrogative categories expected from a European perspective. Still, the structure of these interrogative constructions in Pichis Ashéninca is special from a typological viewpoint because of these characteristics: (1) there is no distinction between 'who' and 'what'; (2) all content interrogative constructions are transparently built on the basis of just one root; (3) this basic interrogative root in isolation has the meaning 'where'; and (4) the noninterrogative parts of the interrogative constructions are verbs. Based on a worldwide investigation of content interrogatives, I argue that these four characteristics are rare. However, all these characteristics are relatively widespread in South America, making it less of a surprise that there is a language in this part of the world that combines all of these unusual characteristics

Interrogative · Interrogative word · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Perspective (graphical · Root (linguistics · Surprise · Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism

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