Térosier, Stéphane
(2024).
« A first look at the clausal determiner in Martinican creole: direct WH
questions » (Colloque 50 ans de linguistique à L'UQAM : Regards croisés sur les enjeux de la linguistique, Université du Québec à Montréal, 22 au 24 avril 2021), sous la dir. de Pinsonneault, Reine et Léveillé, Yoann.
Montréal, pp. 203-214.
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Résumé
Martinican Creole (MC) distinguishes between two types of wh-questions: canonical wh-questions, referred to here as indefinite wh-questions (IWQs), and definite wh-questions (DWQs). The latter are characterized by the presence of a clausal determiner in clause-final position. This determiner is homophonous with the definite article, which follows from the fact that both spell out a [+DEF] feature. I therefore argue that definiteness plays a crucial role in DWQs insofar as they rely for their licensing on the inclusion in the common ground of an antecedent proposition – an existential proposition which may also be thought of as the presupposition of the DWQ. This proposition must therefore be checked against the input common ground. This accounts for the fact DWQs cannot be uttered out of the blue, as well as the fact that they do not tolerate nothing-type answers because this would result in an inconsistent common ground. Based on its distribution with respect to adverbials, I show that the MC clausal determiner is merged in a position where it scopes over the proposition-denoting IP, hence the fact that the DWQ’s must match the denotation of the IP.
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