Aren’t Gitksan Negative Polar Questions Biased

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19214709
AutoresLisa Matthewson (0000-0001-5157-6470, University of British Columbia, autor de correspondencia)
Año2026
Volumen92
Número2
Páginas165-207
Fecha de publicación2026-04-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of American Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-7071 • E-ISSN: 1545-7001
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/739573
OpenAlexW7154485759
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas31

This paper investigates the semantics and pragmatics of polar questions (PQs) in Gitksan. Four types of PQ are examined: PQs formed using the sentence-final clitic aa; PQs that contain aa plus the negation marker nee; PQs that contain aa, nee, and the focus marker dii; and PQs that contain aa plus verum marking. I show that PQs formed only with aa are the preferred option when the speaker believes the addressee will commit to the proposition in the question. PQs that contain negation are felicitous in some types of negatively biased context, but also—surprisingly—in pragmatically neutral contexts. PQs containing nee and dii are unambiguously negatively biased. I sketch an analysis that involves a distinction between monopolar and bipolar questions and an optional falsum operator. Gitksan is a language where monopolar questions are morphosyntactically simpler than bipolar questions; the latter are created in two explicit steps

Commit · Focus (optics) · Negation · Pragmatics · Proposition · Semantics (computer science) · Sketch · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Williams Syndrome Research