Wh-question

In general each kind of Wh question calls for an answer which is an instance of a particular major sentence constituent.

To answer a wh-question, a person usually examines the items described by the <+WH> noun phrase and tests the truth of the sentence for each item.

On the semantic level we understand as obligatory those modifications about which the speaker has an important information so that he must be able to answer a wh-question formed by the listener in the case that there is an ellipsis of the given member of the sentence on the syntactic level. The necessity to be able to answer a wh-question is thus a criterion distinguishing obligatory and optional modifications.

Note that one cannot describe such basic processes as yes–no question and WH-question formation, negation, or the use of emphatic particles in Sinhala without involving focusing, [...]

In the preceding chapters, I have tentatively adopted an analysis for yes-no and WH-questions (aside from multiple WH-questions, as in (1b′), which have not been taken up yet) on the following lines: [...] [T]he S of that structure has the same form as the deep structure of a corresponding declarative sentence, except that the structure underlying a WH-question such as (1b) has a WH-expression in place of one of the constituents that could occur in a corresponding declarative; [...]

The language focus of our lesson were the wh-questions. To form them, a wh-question word needs to move to the clause-initial position: What will you buy? This is also the case in German: Was wirst du kaufen?

One of the aspects particular to friend talk in Japanese is that the speech is in informal style, and while as in any other interactions there are style shifts, these are very limited and strategically accomplished. In informal style questions the ka question particle is omitted and interrogativity is mainly accomplished through intonation and Wh-question words.