Questions and requests in North American Language
Date
2023
Authors
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Publisher
De Gruyter
ORCID
Type
Book chapter
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Abstract
Questions and requests are speech acts that call upon the hearer to do something.
Questions typically ask for a verbal response, while requests usually elicit a
non-verbal response. Both are important in language teaching and often among the
first expressions that a learner acquires.
Questions fall into two groups: polar questions, which can be answered with “yes”
or “no”; and content questions, which require a more elaborate answer. Depending on
the language, there are different types of requests, depending on factors such as identity
of the addressee, politeness, etc. This paper provides an overview over the formation
of different types of questions and requests in Indigenous languages of North America.
Common strategies include intonation, (verbal) inflection or special markers. The paper
closes with a brief discussion of how questions and requests can be used instead of one
another.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Lovick, Olga. 2023. “Questions and requests in North American Languages.” In Carmen Jany, Marianne Mithun and Keren Rice (eds.), The languages and linguistics of North America, 267–288. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Degree
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Committee
Citation
Lovick, Olga. 2023. “Questions and requests in North American Languages.” In Carmen Jany, Marianne Mithun and Keren Rice (eds.), The languages and linguistics of North America, 267–288. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110600926-012