Prepared by:

Fadi Sukkari

A comparative study of

Question Formation: Wh-movement

in English and Arabic

Asking questions and looking for information under the form of answers is a natural human activity; thus, questions are found in all languages.

The interrogative form is part of every language grammar, whatever its syntax or degree of complexity.

By definition, the illocutionary act, associated with the interrogative, is seeking information from the listener to a question.

However, other social meanings, such as exclamation or the issuing of orders might also be possible.

The passage from the declarative/assertive form to the interrogative form, or what we refer to in linguistics by “question formation” can be very different from one language to another.

To form questions,  interrogative words are used. These words are called wh-words because in English most of them start with wh- (how is the only exception to the rule).

They may be used in both direct questions and in indirect questions.

More recently, wh-questions have been referred to as A’-questions since wh-words are exclusive to English.

In French, questions are rather formed by adding Qu-words such as (que, qui, quoi, quel, quand).

Yet, the term wh-questions is still largely used where it is used to study the phenomenon in languages other than English.

The formation of wh-questions is a complex phenomenon that most EFL learners find very difficult, especially when their mother tongues do not present the same type of restrictions.

If we consider the case of Arabic and English, the normal sentence structure of the former is V-S-O, whereas the latter’s structure is S-V-O. This has an influence question formation.

In this paper we will contrast the wh-movement in English to the wh-

movement in Arabic; we will try to show that English has an overt wh-movement, whereas Arabic is more

favorable to in-situ wh-movement, yet, subject questions remain simpler to

form than object questions in both languages.

The Interrogative Form

Interrogative structures in English are of two types- “polar” and “non-polar”.

Polar structures are more known as “Yes/No” questions, whereas non-

polar ones are “Wh-” questions since wh-words are specific to English, or

A’-questions as they are more generally known in generative

grammar.

In polar interrogatives, it is simply the polarity that is in question, where the answer could only be either “Yes” or “No”. The person who is using polar

interrogation does not expect any information of any kind on the questioned component of the

interrogative sentence; thus we frequently hear utterances like “I am

asking you, is it YES, or NO?”

On the other hand, Wh-questions are non-polar and are also known as

“information questions” since they elicit from the interlocutor information and

not a mere “yes” or “no;” in a non-polar interrogative, there is an additional

element embedded in the wh-word that the speaker is looking forward to

knowing.

The “wh-phenomenon”

or non-polar interrogative structure

The structural order of non-polar interrogatives or wh-questions will

generally vary based on the element of the sentence the question is about: it

will have a different structure whether the “Subject” or the “Predicate” of the

sentence is the questioned component.

If the identity of the Subject is questioned, the same order, as the

declarative sentence will prevail, which is an exception to the formation rule;

thus, the order SVO is kept. The answer to the question “Who wants an ice-cream?” would be “Sami wants an

ice-cream.”

In other cases, where the predicate, is being questioned, the wh-word will still come in the beginning of the question,

a phenomenon known as “fronting,” but the rest of the sentence will not

keep the same order, as in “What did you eat?”, “Whom did you invite?”, or

“How is it made?”, where the SVO order is inverted to VSO.

Wh-question formation, as a phenomenon, has always interested linguists as it appears to violate some of the language linguistic

rules. Among these rules, for instance, is that certain verbs are ditransitive so they

necessitate two objects- one direct and the other indirect.

Sami put the dictionary in a drawer (S-V-O1-O2).

*Sami put the dictionary1___ (S-V-O1-___).

*Sami put ___ in a drawer2 (S-V-___-O2).

Although S-V-O is the habitual English structure, but the ditransitive nature of the verb “put” doesn’t allow the empty slots in (b) and (c). However, this empty slot is allowed in:

d- Where did Sami put the dictionary ___?

Here, the empty slot shows the expected location of the PP that is required in the case of a ditransitive verb, as though the question should have been:

e- *Where did Sami put the dictionary in a drawer?

Languages with SVO structure, such as English, have an overt wh-movement.

1. If the questioned component is the subject the question is formed by insert who or what.

2. If the questioned component is anything in the predicate or any sub-part of a noun phrase in

the subject, the question shall be formed by

- inserting the correct wh- word,

- fronting that word,

- moving the operator (V or Aux) in front of the S,

- adding “do” if the sentence has no operator.

p. 8

From the examples in the table, we can conclude that to make a question

using the predicate pattern, it is easier for the learners first to form a yes/no question by inverting the subject and

verb, and then, add the appropriate wh- word to the beginning of the

sentence.

What generalizations can we formulate in English?

1. Wh-questions focus on particular parts of sentences and not on the whole sentence the way that yes-no questions do.

2. Wh-questions are formed by inserting a wh- word into a sentence in the place of missing information.

3. Wh-questions about the subject of a sentence have simpler grammar than wh-questions about anything in the predicate.

4. If Wh-questions are about the S of a sentence just insert who or what and keep the same word order S-V-O.

5. If Wh-questions are about anything in the predicate insert a wh-word and then manipulate the word order by moving that wh-word to the beginning and then moving the operator in front of the subject.

6. If there's no operator in the verb phrase, then one has to be added.  Like Yes/No questions and negatives with not in the verb phrase, wh- questions that need to add an operator use do.

Wh-questions in Arabic

According to Joseph Greenberg's linguistic universal number 12, “If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it always puts interrogative words or phrases first in interrogative word questions.”

p. 10

It is clear from the examples, that Arabic has a simpler structure when it comes to question formation than English.

In all cases, without exception, the wh-word is added at the beginning of the question and the structure V-S-O is kept unchanged.

The only exception to this rule is when the questioned component is the possessive form of the object as in number (7), where the wh-word “من” is projected at the end of the question.

As for the movement within the question of the empty slot, number (1) is different from the other examples, yet, it is not an exception to the rule. The questioned component here is the subject itself, and since in the habitual Arabic sentence structure V-S-O, the subject should immediately follow the verb, which applies even in this case.