Focus structure and Q-word questions in Hittite

Abstract

The relationship between question words (Q-words) and focus is far more complex than generally assumed, in FDG or elsewhere. Q-words are not always contrastive, the focus of a Q-word clause can have more elements than the Q-word in its scope, and Q-word clauses may contain another, separate focus besides the Q-word. This becomes apparent when studying languages in which the Q-word seems to be freely distributed across the clause. A clear example is Hittite, an extinct Indo-European SOV language in which the placement of Q-words is not restricted to the preverbal focus position expected for SOV languages. In this article I will show that Hittite uses multiple strategies for the placement of Q-words, depending on the degree of counterexpectancy of the Q-word question. This motivation for the placement of the (always focused) Q-constituent is shared with the placement of focus constituents in Hittite declaratives. We should thus abandon the notion of a special question focus type, and describe the focus structure at the interpersonal level in FDG irrespective of the type of illocutionary act. As a corollary, the existential presupposition of a Q-word question, often taken to be its only pragmatic presupposition, is detached from its focus structure. In this article the existential presupposition is considered an inherent property of the Q-word, not of the question. Another consequence is that an FG-type focus typology as already established for declaratives can be set up for Q-word questions as well.