hunco’ ‘why’

Morphologically, hunco’ ‘why’ is identical to the AF-marked form of haco’ ‘do what’, i.e. h<un>co’ ‘do what’, and both of them may function as predicates that attract pronoun clitics, as shown in (4.46).

(4.46) a. hunco’=su musa’ tayhoku hira?

why=2S.Nom AF.go Taipei yesterday

‘Why did you go to Taipei yesterday?’

b. h<un>co’=su la?

do what<AF>do what=2S.Nom Part

‘What are you doing?/What happened to you?’

However, while h<un>co’ ‘do what’ may bear aspectual markers or function as the second verb in a SVC, hunco’ ‘why’ can never bear any markers and must occur sentence-initially as the predicate, as shown in (4.47).

(4.47) a. h<in>co’=su morow hira?

do what<Prf>do what=2S.Nom house yesterday

‘What did you do at home yesterday?’

a’. * h<in>co’=su musa’ tayhoku hira?

why<Prf>why=2S.Nom AF.go Taipei yesterday b. m<in>sa’=su h<un>co’ tayhoku hira?

AF<Prf>go=2S.Nom do what<AF>do what Taipei yesterday

‘What did you go to Taipei to do yesterday?’

b’. * m<in>sa’=su hunco’ tayhoku hira?

AF<Prf>go=2S.Nom why Taipei yesterday

In addition to being predicates of SVCs as in (4.46a), hunco’ ‘why’ may precede a complete verbal clause headed by ka’ as the grammatical subject like kanon ‘when’.

Consider (4.48).

(4.48) a. hunco’ ka’ ma-ngilis (*ka’) ’ule’=su karirex?

why Nom AF-cry (*Nom) child=2S.Gen every day

‘Why does your child cry every day?’

a’. kanon ka’ ma-moh (*ka’) ’ule’=su cuxan?

when Nom Red-AF.come (*Nom) child=2S.Gen tomorrow ‘When will your child come tomorrow?’

b. hunco’=su ka’ ma-ngilis karirex?

why=2S.Nom Nom AF-cry every day

‘Why do you cry every day?’

b’.* kanon=su ka’ ma-moh cuxan?

when=2S.Nom Nom Red-AF.come tomorrow

b’’. kanon ka’ ma-moh=su cuxan?

when Nom Red-AF.come=2S.Nom tomorrow ‘When will you come tomorrow?’

As shown in (4.48a-a’), both hunco’ ‘why’ and the interrogative noun kanon ‘when’

may precede a nominalized verbal clause in which the nominative case marker ka’ is deleted to avoid co-occurrence of two identical case markers in a sentence. However, when the subject is realized by a nominative pronoun as in (4.48b-b’’), it is attached to hunco’ ‘why’ but to the predicate of the nomninalized verbal clause occurring after kanon ‘when’.

To sum up, although hunco’ ‘why’ can neither bear focus/aspectual markers nor serve as the second verb in a SVC, it is still qualified as an interrogative verb because hunco’ ‘why’ can only occur sentence-initially as the predicate, and unlike interrogative nouns, hunco’ ‘why’ may attract pronoun clitics without considering whether there are relations of co-reference or possession.

All the seven interrogative verbs discussed above are summarized in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2 Interrogative verbs in Plngawan

Realis Irrealis

4.4.2 Distribution of interrogative words

In this section, we discuss several distributional characteristics of interrogative nouns and verbs and the subject-sensitive constraint.

First, the freedom of distribution seems to differ among various interrogative words. For example, while hunco’ ‘why’ is restricted to occur sentence-initially as the predicate, kanon ‘when’ may appear in sentence-initial, medial, and final positions, as illustrated in (4.49).

(4.49) a. kanon m<in>sa’ tayhoku ka’ temu?

when AF<Prf>go Taipei Nom Temu ‘When did Temu go to Taipei?’

b. m<in>sa’ kanon tayhoku ka’ temu?

AF<Prf>go when Taipei Nom Temu ‘When did Temu go to Taipei?’

c. m<in>sa’ tayhoku kanon ka’ temu?

AF<Prf>go Taipei when Nom Temu ‘When did Temu go to Taipei?’

d. ma-moh=su kanon?

Red-AF.come=2S.Nom when ‘When will you come?’

Second, all interrogative verbs may occur in sentence-initial position because it is the most unmarked place for verbs in Plngawan. Some of them can be preceded by aspectual markers like wal ‘perfective’ or by another verb in a SVC and occur sentence-medially. They may even appear sentence-finally when nominative pronouns are cliticized to sentence-initial elements, as exemplified by h<un>co’ ‘do what’ in (4.50).

(4.50) a. h<un>co’=su la?

do what<AF>do what=2S.Nom Part

‘What are you doing?/What happened to you?’

b. wal h<un>co’ ka’ watan?

Prf do what<AF>do what Nom Watan ‘What has Watan done?’

b’. m<in>sa’=su h<un>co’ tayhoku hira?

AF<Prf>go=2S.Nom do what<AF>do what Taipei yesterday

‘What did you go to Taipei to do yesterday?’

c. cyel=su h<un>co’?

Exi.Rem=2S.Nom do what<AF>do what ‘What are you doing?’

For interrogative nouns referring to non-subject arguments or serving as adnominal modifiers of non-subject nouns, they tend to occur in the most unmarked sentence-medial position or occur sentence-finally when nominative pronouns are cliticized to predicates. When they are fronted initially as predicates, however, focus of the verbal predicate of the nominalized clause has to be modified to make the fronted interrogative noun refer to the grammatical subject, as shown in (4.51c-c’).

(4.51) a. t<um>ahuk ci ’amol ka’ yaya’?

cook<AF>cook Acc what Nom mother ‘What does Mother cook?’

b. t<um>ahuk=su ci ’ucyux ’amol?

cook<AF>cook=2S.Nom Acc fish what

‘What kind of fish do you cook?’

c. ’amol ka’ cyel=su tahk-un?

what Nom Exi.Rem=2S.Gen cook-PF ‘What are you cooking?’

c’. * ’amol ka’ cyel=su t<um>ahuk?

what Nom Exi.Rem=2S.Nom cook<AF>cook

As (4.51c-c’) suggest, we may infer that Plngawan is an optional-fronting language that observes the subject-sensitive constraint, i.e. fronted interrogative words must be the grammatical subject of a sentence. In other words, interrogative nouns referring to subjects or serving as modifiers of subject nouns cannot remain in-situ, i.e. in

sentence-final position, as exemplified in (4.52).

(4.52) a. * na-ni’-un ni yaya’ ka’ ’amol?

Red-eat-PF Gen mother Nom what ‘What will Mother eat?’

b. * cyel=su tahk-un ka’ ’ucyux ’amol?

Exi.Rem=2S.Gen cook-PF Nom fish what kind

‘What kind of fish are you cooking?’

Such a constraint may be accounted for by the fact that subjects usually have to be realized by specific and definite information. Thus, interrogative nouns that denote unknown and indefinite information have to be fronted initially to draw focus and emphasis.

The same constraint is observed in the distribution of the interrogative noun kanon ‘when’. Consider examples in (4.53).

(4.53) a. ma-moh ka’ watan cuxan?

Red-AF.come Nom Watan tomorrow

‘Will Watan come tomorrow?’

b. * ma-moh ka’ watan kanon?

Red-AF.come Nom Watan when

b’. kanon ma-moh ka’ watan?

when Red-AF.come Nom Watan

‘When will Watan come?’

As shown in (4.53), while the temporal noun cuxan ‘tomorrow’ may occur in sentence-final position, the temporal question word kanon ‘when’ has to be fronted sentence-initially even though it does not refer to the subject.

The discussion in this section may be summarized in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3 Distribution of interrogative words in Plngawan

Question word Initial Medial Final

’ima + + +