Polar Questions
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 955 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Question particle”, covers 585 of them (61%); the least frequent, “No interrogative-declarative distinction”, is recorded for a single language.
That value is most frequent in Africa (71% of the 225 languages coded there) and least frequent in South America (45% of 94).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Central Sudanic is the most uniform: 16 of 17 have “Question particle”.
Altaic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 11 of 22.
Question particle585 languages · 61%
Interrogative verb morphology164 languages · 17%
Question particle and interrogative verb morphology15 languages · 2%
Interrogative word order13 languages · 1%
Absence of declarative morphemes4 languages · under 1%
Interrogative intonation only173 languages · 18%
No interrogative-declarative distinction1 language · under 1%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question particle | 160 | 141 | 125 | 33 | 84 | 42 |
| Interrogative verb morphology | 22 | 64 | 25 | 0 | 25 | 28 |
| Question particle and interrogative verb morphology | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Interrogative word order | 0 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Absence of declarative morphemes | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Interrogative intonation only | 38 | 21 | 58 | 22 | 15 | 19 |
| No interrogative-declarative distinction | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All values | 225 | 242 | 212 | 56 | 126 | 94 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 115 | Question particle | 62% |
| Niger-Congo | 100 | Question particle | 79% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 87 | Question particle | 59% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 59 | Question particle | 61% |
| Indo-European | 56 | Question particle | 59% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 50 | Question particle | 52% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 33 | Question particle | 52% |
| Altaic | 22 | Question particle | 50% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 21 | Question particle | 67% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 20 | Question particle | 80% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 20 | Question particle | 50% |
| Oto-Manguean | 19 | Question particle | 84% |
| Central Sudanic | 17 | Question particle | 94% |
| Arawakan | 11 | Question particle | 55% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Question particle: French, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, Indonesian, Mandarin
- Interrogative verb morphology: Lezgian, Abkhaz, Korean, Greenlandic (West), Burushaski, Krongo
- Question particle and interrogative verb morphology: Pirahã, Ika, Amharic, Kashmiri, Marind, Djapu
- Interrogative word order: English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Palauan
- Absence of declarative morphemes: Kabardian, Dinka
- Interrogative intonation only: Georgian, Maori, Hixkaryana, Chukchi, Fijian, Lango
- No interrogative-declarative distinction: Mixtec (Chalcatongo)