Re: interrogative tail or head ?

yes,
when i understand you right then:

head-interrogation
got the advantage to be less surprising, and prepares the listener better for
whats coming and that it may be a
FALSE-statement.

tail-interrogation got the advantage to be less accoustically
overheard.

so after all its the question : what matters more ?
the negative surprise of tail-interrogations
or
the possibility to accousticaly overhear head-interrogations ?


in the sentence: "..[30 words].., isnt it ?" we  accept the statement
as true until we hear the short phrase "inst it?" and are abit
confused. we have to think back to check the content of the sentence
wether we agree or not and how we could formulate our answer.
we can see this confusion in everyday life.


linguistic is descriptive.
conlanging gives linguists the freedom to opine.

regards,
c.s.


MT> From: "claudio" <claudio.soboll@...>
>> questions are often psychologically unwelcome, not only due to their
>> forcing character to answer, but also due to their surprising
>> character (only in spoken speech).
>> "surprising" due to the appearance of question marks (or raising
>> intonation) at the end of a sentence.
>> even the chinese interrogativ-particle "ne" apears at the end.
>> for many particles , the final apearence is usefull, because we
>> humans talk sometimes "brainstorming-like" without having the complete
>> sentence we want to tell our listeners in mind,
>> before we open our mouth.
>> but doesnt exist the interrogative intention of a speaker always in mind
>> *before* man formulates the question ?
>> so how come that our interrogative particles dont appearn at the head
>> of a sentence ?
MT> Well, one answer is: they do.

MT> In English the normal yes/no question form adds a form of "do" at the
MT> beginning:

MT>     He likes cheese.
MT>     - Does he like cheese?
MT>     - Do you know that for sure?
MT>     - He hates provolone, doesn't he?

MT> Or else it moves "to be" or other auxverbs to the front:

MT>     The sky is falling.
MT>     - Has it been?
MT>     - Is it getting worse?
MT>     - Would you fetch me an umbrella?

MT> For other kinds of questions, there's also "wh-" question words that go at
MT> the beginning.

MT>     He likes cheese.
MT>     - What does he like?
MT>     - Why does he like it?
MT>     - How did that happen?
MT>     - How come he told you?

MT> Of course these can get moved around for emphasis ("He likes *what*?") or in

MT> [And of course in Spanish there's the "opening question mark" <¿>, which
MT> marks the beginning of a question.]

MT>     *Muke!




regards,
c.s.

  "it's harder to simplificate complex things
   - without losing a a piece of meaning -
   than complicating simple things."