4 Responses to “Datapoint for feature 92 and language wals_code_ygr”

1. Thomas Hart Chappell Says:
   October 29th, 2009 at 9:37 pm

   Why is Yagaria listed both as having “no question particle” and as having a “question particle” in
   http://wals.info/feature/combined?id1=921&id2=116
   ?
   In
   http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_ygr
   , in the “Word Order” section, feature 92 refers to Renck 1975 (47, 101) to say “no question particle”;
   yet in the “Simple Clauses” section, feature 116 also refers to Renck 1975 (47, 101) to say “question particle.

2. Thomas Hart Chappell Says:
   December 25th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

   In
   http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_ygr
   , in the “Simple Clauses” section, feature 116 also refers to Renck 1975 (47, 101) to typologize Yagaria as using a “question particle”.
   In a recent comment to that data-point, Prof. Dryer has pointed out that in spite of Renck’s terminology, what Yagaria actually has is a “question clitic”, which may attach to some other word than the verb.

   But, still, in the “Word Order” section, feature 92 refers to Renck 1975 (47, 101) to say “no question particle” for Yagaria.

   If there’s a clitic that can attach to the verb or to a word other than the verb, shouldn’t it say “Other Position” instead? (Or, maybe, “second position” or “either of two positions”, depending on what Yagaria actually does?)

   I still do not understand why, in
   http://wals.info/feature/combined?id1=92&id2=116
   , Yagaria shows up as a “1″ in the lower left-hand cell of the table as the only language which both has a question particle and has no question particle.

3. Matthew S. Dryer Says:
   December 29th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

   Yagaria is incorrectly coded in the 2008 edition in Chapter 92 as having no question particle but in Chapter 116 as having a question particle, clearly a contradiction. This will be corrected in the next online edition of WALS. It should be coded in Chapter 92 as having a Final Question Particle.

4. Matthew S. Dryer Says:
   December 29th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

   In response to the question of why it shouldn’t be coded as “Other Position” or “second position” or “either of two positions”, it occurs on nouns (or postpositional clitics) only (as I understand it) when these occur in predicate position at the end of the clause, so the question clitic does always occur on the predicate at the end of the clause, whether this predicate is a verb, a noun (or noun phrase), or a postpositional phrase.

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