[Lingtyp] affirmative particles and affirmative answers

[Martin Haspelmath]

I agree with Adam Singerman that there's little hope of reconstructing 
Proto-Indo-European answers to polar questions.

As a beautiful illustration of the (likely) influence of a substrate 
language, I recommend Vennemann (2009):

Vennemann, Theo. 2009. Celtic influence in English? Yes and no. /English 
Language & Linguistics/ 13(2). 309–334. (doi:10.1017/S1360674309003049 
<https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674309003049>) 
https://www.academia.edu/6582604/Celtic_influence_in_English_Yes_and_No

This paper argues that English short-sentence answers (of the type 
"(yes) I will"), which are rather different from what the the other 
Germanic languages have, were calqued from a Celtic substratum. The fact 
that Old English is more Germanic-like may seem to go against this 
hypotheses, but Vennemann tries to construct a scenario in which this is 
compatible with the substratum hypothesis.

Best,
Martin

Am 14.11.21 um 19:48 schrieb Adam Singerman:
> Dear Ion,
>
> Anders Holmberg has a 2016 monograph entitled "The Syntax of Yes and
> No." It's couched in a Generative approach but it's still full of data
> that may be useful to you! (I have a PDF copy of the book and am happy
> to pass it along to you.)
>
> Re: this statement of yours:
> "Among the Indo-European languages, some use a dedicated affirmative
> particle such as "yes", others don't, using for affirmative answers
> the repetition of the verb or of the focused  word, or an adverb with
> other uses (so, truly, indeed). The variety of forms and constructions
> suggests that the parent language didn't have an affirmative
> particle."
>
> Unless we have a concrete theory about how answers to questions can
> change over time, I don't believe we can infer from the diversity of
> affirmative answers in the modern Indo-European languages anything
> concrete about how affirmative answers would've worked in Proto-IE.
> Plus, how to respond to answers (with repetition of the verb, with a
> particle meaning 'yes,' with an adverb that has other uses) seems like
> the exact kind of discourse-situated practice that could be expected
> to spread in contact scenarios.
>
> All the best,
> Adam
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-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
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