There has been a great deal of work examining the structures of yes/no and wh-constructions that has led to many important developments in linguistic theory. In this dissertation, I extend this work by developing a theory that explains how the behavior of Qu-morphemes (question morphemes) and wh-phrases in interrogative constructions in several different languages is influenced by `interrogative features.' The interrogative features are 1) a Qu-feature, which is responsible for typing a clause as an interrogative, 2) a wh-feature, which is responsible for giving a wh-phrase scope, and 3) a Focus-feature, which is responsible for focusing certain relevant phrases. The main focus of this work is on explaining the influence of these interrogative features on the positions of question morphemes and wh-phrases. In the first part of this work, I examine the behavior of Qu-morphemes. I account for why a Qu-morpheme must appear in the clause periphery in certain languages, such as Japanese, whereas it can appear in a non-clause-peripheral position in other languages, such as Sinhala. I explain how a Qu-feature associated with a Qu-morpheme types a clause and why there is variation in the positions of Qu-morphemes. The second part of this work focuses on the behavior of wh-phrases. I account for why wh-constructions can be formed with an in-situ wh-phrase (for example, in Japanese), with movement of a wh-phrase to a scope position (for example, in English), or with movement of a wh-phrase to a non-scopal position (for example, in some dialects of German). I also examine other phenomena involving wh-phrases. I show how wh-feature movement can influence well-formedness of a wh-construction. I explain why, in certain cases, what would normally be an ill-formed construction can be repaired via the addition of a wh-phrase. I examine why some languages, but not others, allow multiple wh-constructions. Lastly, I investigate the odd behavior of the wh-phrase 'why,' which behaves differently from other wh-phrases. This work is novel in that it provides a unified analysis of cross-linguistic and language internal variation in the structures of yes/no and wh-constructions.

Usage-based, constructivist approaches to first language acquisition assume that children’s linguistic abilities emerge in a piecemeal fashion through interaction with mature language users (Tomasello 2003). In spite of the fact that both formal and functional characteristics of the linguistic constructions involved are thought to be of importance in this process, most previous studies have focused exclusively on form. The current study aims at exploring the contribution of functional factors in the learning of a subset of yes-no questions: providing an in-depth analysis of the emergence of Can -person-process?-constructions in a high-density Childescorpus of a boy learning English (Lieven et al. 2009), it is shown that functional factors need to be considered in order to be able to account for the developmental path. It is suggested that we need to re-evaluate the relationship between (formal as well as functional) frequency, salience, and entrenchment and the ways in which these aspects interact during the language learning process. This has important implications for future research on language development as well as for claims about the mental organization of linguistic knowledge within CxG and Cognitive Linguistics more generally.

The aim of this dissertation is to chart the development of interrogative syntax among Finnish-speaking children between the ages of 1 to 4 years living in Sweden. The material consists of language samples taken from eleven Sweden-Finnish children with Finnish as their first language. The data from the corpus have been compared with acquisition studies of Finnish-speaking children in Finland, with material from an adult-language corpus and with studies of children speaking other languages than Finnish. The first questions appearing in the corpus are wh-questions, on average at the age of 1.9 and one month earlier than yes/no-questions. Both wh-questions and yes/no-questions are produced by all children in the corpus, whereas disjunctive questions are used by only one child. Wh-questions comprise approximately two thirds of the interrogatives and yes/no-questions a third; only one disjunctive question is used. The older the child, the greater the proportion of yes/no-questions. The earliest wh-question words are tnikä 'what' nom. sg., missä 'where' and mita 'what' part, sg., used by one-year-olds. Kuka 'who' nom. sg., mihin 'where to' and miten 'how' all appear before the age of 2.6, and miksi 'why1, mista 'where from' and minkä 'what* acc. 1 sg. start being used before the age of three. The use of milloin 'when', kenen 'whose', minkä varinen 'of what color' and mitkä 'what' nom. pl. commences at the age of three. Other question words and question word forms are produced by a few children. Wh-interrogative clauses in this study have been divided into ellipses, on-clauses, V-clauses and Adnom-clauses. The ellipses and cm-clauses are acquired on average at the age of 1.9, V-clauses at 1.11 and Adnom-clauses at 2.3. The question words are used correctly for the most part, with the same references as in adult speech. Semantic misuse of mikä 'what' was detected in 2 % of the pronoun's occurrences; kuka 'who' is misused relatively often, 38 % of the time. The different case forms of the interrogative pronouns and adjectives are on the whole used correctly. One pronoun form susceptible to misuse is nom. sg. mikä 'what', often erroneously produced instead of some other case form. The interrogative adverbs are used according to adult norms almost without exception. The earliest yes/no-questions in the corpus are -kO-questions, starting on average at age 1.10; the use of -hAn-questions begins at age 2.5. Other yes/no-questions appear at a much later date. The first -kO-questions are neutral -kO-questions. Focused -kO-questions are acquired somewhat later on. The neutral -kO-questions have been divided into onko 'Is it?'-questions, Simple V+kO-questions, Aux+kO-questions and Neg+kO+V-questions; the various types of questions are acquired in that order. The interrogative clauses in the corpus have been categorized as information-eliciting questions, directive questions, conversational questions and expressive questions; their acquisition follows ibis order. / digitalisering@umu

Polarity questions, i.e. questions that demand as an answer either an affirmation or a denial (e.g. yes or no), are considered to be an universal language feature. Different strategies to answer polarity questions have been observed across languages. Sadock & Zwicky (1985) identified three systems of answer strategies: yes/no systems, agree/disagree systems and echosystems. Other studies have attested languages exhibiting a mix of these types (i.a. Floydet al. 2016, Holmberg 2016). Sadock & Zwicky (1985) do not offer any statements about the frequency distribution of the language systems, nor do they explain what kind of sample was used for their analysis. The aim of this study is to fill this gap. Specifically, the goals are to investigate the validity of the typology offered in Sadock & Zwicky (1985) and to establish some estimates about the cross-linguistic frequency of the types identified during this investigation. The data are collected through consultation of reference grammars and elicitation by means of a questionnaire. / Polaritetsfrågor, frågor där det förväntade svaret är ja eller nej, anses vara ett universellt språk drag. Olika strategier för att svara på polaritetsfrågor har observerats i världens språk. Sadock & Zwicky (1985) identifierade tre svarssystem: polaritetsystem (yes/no system), sanningssystem (agree/disagree system) och ekosystem (echo system). Andra studier har funnit att språk också kan blanda dessa system (i.a. Floyd et al. 2016, Holmberg 2016). Sadock & Zwicky (1985) varken redogör för vilken distribution dessa svarssystem har eller vilket urval resultaten baseras på. Syftet med denna studie är att fylla den luckan. Målet är att undersöka validiteten i Sadock & Zwickys (1985) typologi samt att fastställa den tvärspråkliga frekvensen för de svarssystem som undersöks. Datainsamlingen sker genom grammatikor och elicitering genom en enkät.