Re: What is an IE language (was: Re: Workshops Review from Yitzik the

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> writes:

> [in] spoken Spanish. Inversion *is* definitely, along with
> intonation, a normal mark of interrogation. "¿Qué dijo el niño?" pregunta el
> abuelo, not *"¿Qué el niño dijo?". I don't think even in colloquial language
> you would hear that, and Spanish is *not a V2 language ;))) .
I think I heard someone say "¿Qué usted dijo?" or something like that,
though it was definitely colloquial (and not my dialect). It sounded
weird to me. Inversion is the rule when there's an interrogative
pronoun; for yes/no question it varies and (as in English) it marks
different focuses (foci?). When the subject of a yes/no question
is implicit, intonation is the only way to mark a question.

Curiously, de-fronting the interrogative pronoun ("He said what?")
is not that common; intonation (a special tone over the pronoun and
a less-high pitch on the last part of the sentence) usually suffices.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/index.html
  Midi davie sukhaod itimuri.
  ("Time makes poetry from mistakes.")