Kusaal interrogatives

Discourse function and focus distinction

Abstract

Crosslinguistically interrogative structures exhibit inherent discourse interpretations. This study investigates two types of discourse interpretations marked in question forms in Kusaal, a Mabia language spoken in Ghana. It argues that speakers of Kusaal use morphological means to distinguish between questions that seek new information and others that require exhaustive interpretations on the focused constituent. Specifically, wh-questions in Kusaal manifest in two distinct forms: exhaustive wh-questions and non-exhaustive wh-questions each serving specific discourse functions. While exhaustive wh-questions require the use of the particles ka and nɛ in non-subject focus in both the question and answer pairs, the same is not the case in non-exhaustive wh-questions and their corresponding answer pairs. The study shows that exhaustive wh-questions express completeness and total exclusivity of the selected set. They are of the kind A, not B and nothing else. This finer-grained discourse distinction is accounted for using the i-structure of the Lexical-Functional Grammar framework.