Linguistics· 2026Q1
Interrogative clauses that don’t interrogate: the interpretation and the syntax of the West Flemish discourse particle kwestje
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
The West Flemish discourse particle 'kwestje' marks syntactically interrogative clauses as non-inquisitive questions, conveying a speaker-oriented meaning.
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Key points
- The particle 'kwestje' in West Flemish modifies interrogative clauses to function as non-inquisitive statements.
- It expresses a speaker-oriented meaning, potentially linked to the first-person pronoun in a related particle.
- Syntactically, 'kwestje' is analyzed as residing in the left-periphery (IntP).
- Its position leads to interactions with wh-words and complementizers.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract In this paper we examine the West Flemish discourse particle kwestje , a root element that marks syntactically interrogative clauses as non-canonical, non-inquisitive questions. We discuss the speaker-oriented meaning that kwestje expresses and suggest that this comes about by analogy with a subtly different West Flemish particle, kwe(t)sunder , whose k- element derives from the first-person singular pronoun. We present a cartographic syntactic analysis of kwestje , arguing that it is generated in the left-periphery in IntP, resulting in interesting interactions with other left-peripheral items including specific wh -words and complementisers. In line with the topic of this collection, we discuss the extent to which particles like kwestje can contribute to understanding similarities and differences between discourse-related expletives and discourse ‘markers’.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Linguistics, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Language and Linguistics
Language and LinguisticsArts and Humanities