Interrogative mood

In linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood (abbreviated int) is an epistemic grammatical mood used for asking questions by inflecting the main verb.^[1] Its occurrence is rare.

Examples of languages with an interrogative mood

• Irish Gaelic
• Scottish Gaelic
• Nenets
• Turkish
• Welsh
• Venetan (Venetian)
• Korean

Alternatives to the interrogative mood

Very few languages have an interrogative mood. For most languages, there is no special question-asking mood. Many languages employ one of the following syntactic methods to change an ordinary sentence (declarative statement) into a question:

• Adding a particle to the beginning or end of a sentence, such as the Japanese particle か ka and the Mandarin particle 吗/嗎 ma.

  彼は日本人です Kare wa Nihon-jin desu; "He is Japanese."

  → 彼は日本人ですか？ Kare wa Nihon-jin desu ka?; "Is he Japanese?"

  他是中国人 (Chinese: 他是中國人; pinyin: Tā shì Zhōngguórén) "He is Chinese [boy/man]."

  → 他是中国人吗？ (Chinese: 他是中國人嗎？; pinyin: Tā shì Zhōngguórén ma?) "Is he Chinese?"

• Adding a generic ending to the end of a word, such as in Latin where -ne is added to the end of the first word of the interrogation:

  Tu es puer. "You are a boy."

  → Tune es puer? "Are you a boy?"

• Changing word order. In some Romance languages, such as French, one also asks a question by switching the verb with the subject (SVO → VSO). The switched subject can later result in grammatically interrogative endings generating an interrogative mood as in most varieties of Venetian — e.g. Old Venetian vu magnè → magnè-vu? → Modern Venetian magneto/magnèu?, now used also with overt subjects; Voaltri magnèo co mi? (literally "You eat-you with me?").
• English similarly changes word order from SVO to VSO ("You are sure" becomes, "Are you sure?"). Very often, the auxiliary verb "do" is inserted, undergoing the change in word order in the place of the main verb ("You have brown hair" becomes, "Do you have brown hair?"). This latter form became quite common in English in the late 16th century.
• Spoken Welsh changes the primary auxiliary verb bod — e.g. Rwyt ti'n bwyta "You are eating" → Wyt ti'n bwyta? "Are you eating?"
• In Turkish, the interrogative preposition "mı" (also "mi", "mu", "mü" according to the last vowel of the word) is added. Other personal or verbal suffixes are also added to the suitable preposition.

  Geliyorum. "I am coming."

  → Geliyor muyum? "Am I coming?"

  Geliyordum. "I was coming."

  → Geliyor muydum? "Was I coming?"

  Geldim. "I came."

  → Geldim mi? "Did I come?"

  Evlisin. "You are married."

  → Evli misin? "Are you married?"

• Offering the listener an explicit yes/no alternative, such as in Mandarin:

  他是中国人 (Chinese: 他是中國人; pinyin: Tā shì Zhōngguórén) "He is Chinese."

  → 他是不是中国人？ (Chinese: 他是不是中國人？; pinyin: Tā shì bu shì Zhōngguórén?; literally "He is/isn't Chinese?") "Is he Chinese?"

• Using a different intonation. English usually ends questions with a rising tone. In some Romance languages, such as Italian, some interrogative sentences are distinguished from declarative sentences only through intonation.

Languages that use a special mood of the verb to mark questions may also employ one or more of the preceding methods. For example, a language could always use the interrogative mood to ask a question, but it could also offer the listener a choice if a certain answer is desired.

See also

• Grammatical polarity
• Interrogative word
• Question

References

1. ^ Loos, Eugene E.; Susan Anderson; Dwight H. Day, Jr.; Paul C. Jordan; J. Douglas Wingate. "What is interrogative mood?". Glossary of linguistic terms. SIL International. http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsInterrogativeMood.htm. Retrieved 2009-12-28. 

This linguistic morphology article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Grammatical moods Linguistic morphology stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР Fugloy List of Arkansas state highways Look at other dictionaries: interrogative mood — noun some linguists consider interrogative sentences to constitute a mood • Syn: ↑interrogative • Hypernyms: ↑mood, ↑mode, ↑modality …   Useful english dictionary interrogative — [[t]ɪ̱ntərɒ̱gətɪv[/t]] interrogatives 1) ADJ GRADED: usu ADJ n An interrogative gesture or tone of voice shows that you want to know the answer to a question. [WRITTEN] Donovan cocked an interrogative eye at his companion, who nodded in reply.… …   English dictionary mood — mood1 noun 1》 a state of mind or feeling.     ↘an angry, irritable, or sullen state of mind. 2》 the atmosphere or pervading tone of something. 3》 [as modifier] inducing or suggestive of a particular mood: mood music. Origin OE mōd, of Gmc origin …   English new terms dictionary mood — W3S3 [mu:d] n ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 1¦(way you feel)¦ 2 be in a mood 3 be/feel in the mood for something 4 be in no mood for something/to do something 5¦(way a place or event feels)¦ 6¦(grammar)¦ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ [Sense: 1 5; Origin: Old English mod mind, courage ] …   Dictionary of contemporary English mood — I (New American Roget s College Thesaurus) n. temper, humor, disposition, inclination. See tendency, feeling. II (Roget s IV) n. 1. [A state of mind] Syn. frame of mind, state, condition, temper, humor, temperament, spirits, disposition,… …   English dictionary for students Grammatical mood — Grammatical categories Animacy Aspect Case Clusivity Definiteness Degree of comparison Evidentiality Focus …   Wikipedia Irrealis mood — Irrealis moods (abbreviated irr) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened as the speaker is talking. Every language has a formula for the unreal. The Indian languages of… …   Wikipedia Subjunctive mood — In grammar, the subjunctive mood (abbreviated sjv or sbjv) is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet… …   Wikipedia Realis mood — Realis moods (abbreviated real) are a category of grammatical moods which indicate that something is actually the case (or actually not the case); in other words, the state of which is known. The most common realis mood is the indicative mood, or …   Wikipedia Optative mood — The optative mood (abbreviated opt) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood. Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish, Old Prussian,… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”