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46-521: The wider category of A-not-A questions contains multiple distinct forms. These forms are differentiated on the basis of the location of the Negation constituent and the presence or absence of duplicate material. This is the most atomic form of the A-not-A question, which contains two identical instances of the constituent A separated by negation. This is a more complex form, containing two instances of

92-720: A null initial (apart from open zhǐ rime series ( 止攝開口 ) finals), unlike the /ʐ/ of Northern and Beijing Mandarin. Based on, for example, the pronunciation of the palatalized jiàn initial ( 見母 ), Jiaoliao Mandarin can be divided into Qingzhou, Denglian and Gaihuan areas. Central Plains Mandarin is spoken in the Central Plains of Henan , southwestern Shanxi , southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu , as well as most of Shaanxi , southern Ningxia and Gansu and southern Xinjiang , in famous cities such as Kaifeng , Zhengzhou , Luoyang , Xuzhou , Xi'an , Xining and Lanzhou . Central Plains Mandarin lects merge

138-579: A VP-proclitic. This Morpheme is referred to as NQ in order to represent its character as negative and interrogative. An extensive cross-dialectic survey conducted in 1985 concluded that the Taiwanese question particle kam appears in the same contexts as the hypothesized Mandarin NQ. From this, it was concluded that kam-type questions and A-not-A questions are in complementary distribution: a language either has kam-type questions or A-not-A questions but not both. It

184-491: A departing tone. Subdivision of Central Plains Mandarin is not fully agreed upon, though one possible subdivision sees 13 divisions, namely Xuhuai, Zhengkai, Luosong, Nanlu, Yanhe, Shangfu, Xinbeng, Luoxiang, Fenhe, Guanzhong, Qinlong, Longzhong and Nanjiang. Lanyin Mandarin, on the other hand, is divided as Jincheng, Yinwu, Hexi, and Beijiang. The Dungan language is a collection of Central Plains Mandarin varieties spoken in

230-464: A national prestige during the Ming and Qing periods, though not all linguists support this viewpoint. The Language Atlas divides Huai into Tongtai, Huangxiao, and Hongchao areas, with the latter further split into Ninglu and Huaiyang. Tongtai, being geographically located furthest west, has the most significant Wu influence, such as in its distribution of historical voiced plosive series. Yue Chinese

276-658: A negative question. A "yes" response to the question "You don't beat your wife?" is ambiguous in English, but the Welsh response "nag ydw" has no ambiguity. Although Latin has words or phrases that can stand in for "yes" and "no", it also employs echo answers. Echo answers would be the more common and neutral response: The Portuguese language is the only major Romance language to use echo answers often, even though it has words for "yes" and "no" proper ( sim and não respectively) as well. Portuguese will most commonly answer

322-400: A polar question in the affirmative by repeating the main verb. For example, one would answer the question, "Tens fome?" ("Are you hungry?" literally, "Do you have hunger?") by simply replying, "tenho" ("I have"). One could also add sim before or after the verb for the use of emphasis or to contradict a negative question, producing "sim, tenho" or "tenho sim". To produce a negative answer to

368-691: A polar question, the verb is preceded by não, optionally repeated after the verb for emphasis. Thus, a negative answer to our above question would be: "Não tenho," "Não tenho, não," or "Não tenho fome." Unlike other Indo-Aryan languages, in Nepali there is no one word for 'yes' and 'no' as it depends upon the verb used in the question. Generally, with the exception of certain situational words, Nepali employs echo answers to respond to yes-no questions. The words "yes" and "no" in English are most commonly translated as 'हो' (ho; lit.   ' "is" ' ) and 'होइन' (hoina; lit.   ' "not is" ' ) are in fact

414-450: Is a way of answering a polar question without using words for yes and no . The verb used in the question is simply echoed in the answer, negated if the answer has a negative truth-value . For example: The Finnish language is one language that employs echo answers in response to yes–no questions . It does not answer them with either adverbs or interjections . So the answer to "Tuletteko kaupungista?" ("Are you coming from town?")

460-518: Is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic; otherwise, Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a shared historical background, and usage of the term "Sinitic" may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct languages, rather than variants of a single language. Over 91% of the Chinese population speaks a Sinitic language. Approximately 1.52 billion people are speakers of

506-556: Is or not jog?") In addition, yes–no questions are often formed by adding the particle "吗" ( ma for "yes or no?") to the end of a sentence, in which case the answer can be "是的" ( shì de for "is (so)") or "不是" ( bu shì for "not is (so)"), or "对" ( duì for "right") or "不对" ( bu duì for "not right"): Q : 你不上课吗？ Nǐ bu shàng kè ma? ("You not go-to class yes-or-no?") Sinitic linguistic family The Sinitic languages ( simplified Chinese : 汉语族 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語族 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ zú ), often synonymous with

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552-410: Is sometimes separated as a remnant of Old Shu. Huai is spoken in central Anhui , northern Jiangxi , far western and eastern Hubei and most of Jiangsu . Due to its preservation of a checked tone, some linguists believe that Huai ought to be treated as a top-level group, like Jin. Representative lects tend to be Nanjingnese , Hefeinese and Yangzhounese . The Huai of Nanjing has likely served as

598-571: Is spoken by around 84 million people, in western Guangdong , eastern Guangxi , Hong Kong , Macau and parts of Hainan , as well as overseas communities such as Kuala Lumpur and Vancouver . Famous lects such as Cantonese and Taishanese belong to this family. Yue Chinese lects generally possess long-short distinctions in their vowels, which is reflected in their almost universally split dark-checked and often split light-checked tones. They generally also tend to preserve all three checked plosive finals and three nasal finals. The status of Pinghua

644-522: Is spoken in the Jiaodong and Liaodong Peninsulae , which includes the cities of Dalian and Qingdao , as well as several prefectures along the China-Korea border. Like Jilu Mandarin, its light checked tone is merged into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial, though its dark checked is merged into the rising. Its rì initial ( 日母 ) terms are pronounced with

690-560: Is the auxiliary that is echoed: the English question "Will you come?" is often answered in Ireland with "I will" instead of "Yes" or "I will not" instead of "no".) Similarly, in Welsh, the answers to "Ydy Fred yn dod?" ("Is Fred coming?") are "Ydy" ("He is") or "Nag ydy" ("He is not"). In general, the negative answer is the positive answer combined with " nag ". As in Finnish, it avoids the issue of what an unadorned "yes" means in response to

736-685: Is the verb "to eat" conjugated for the past tense first person singular. In certain contexts, the word "नाई" (nāī) can be used to deny something that is stated, for instance politely passing up an offer. Chinese languages often employ echo answers. Often, yes–no questions in Mandarin are expressed in the A-not-A form, and are answered with either A or not-A. For example, where Q stands for question, A for affirmative, and N for negative: Q : 你要不要吃桔子？ Nǐ yào bú yào chī júzi? ("You want or not want eat orange?") Q : 他在不在慢跑？ Tā zài bú zài màn pǎo? ("He

782-426: Is the verb form itself, "Tulemme" ("We are coming."). Negatively phrased questions are answered similarly. Negative answers use the negative verb en in coordination with the infinitive. The negative answer to "Tunnetteko herra Lehdon?" ("Do you know Mr Lehto?") is "En tunne" ("I don't know.") or simply "En" ("I don't."). The Celtic languages also primarily employ echo answers. Irish and Scottish Gaelic lack

828-662: The Chinese languages , are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family . It is frequently proposed that there is a primary split between the Sinitic languages and the rest of the family (the Tibeto-Burman languages ). This view is rejected by some researchers but has found phylogenetic support among others. The Macro-Bai languages , whose classification

874-929: The Republic of China , People's Republic of China , Singapore and United Nations . Re-population efforts, such as that of the Qing dynasty in the Southwest, tended to involve Mandarin speakers. Classification of Mandarin lects has undergone several significant changes, though nowadays it is commonly divided as such, based on the distribution of the historical checked tone: as well as other lects, which do not neatly fall into these categories, such as Mandarin Junhua varieties. Varieties of Mandarin can be defined by their universally lost -m final, low number of tones, and smaller inventory of classifiers , among other features. Mandarin lects also often have rhotic erhua rimes, though

920-589: The Southwest . The languages are: All other Sinitic languages henceforth would be considered Chinese. The Chinese branch of the family is classified into at least seven main families. These families are classified based on five main evolutionary criteria: The varieties within one family may not be mutually intelligible with each other. For instance, Wenzhounese and Ningbonese are not highly mutually intelligible. The Language Atlas of China identifies ten groups: with Jin, Hui, Pinghua, and Tuhua not part of

966-459: The A-not-AB form, but the more complex constituent AB occurs before the negation. This form is only found in instances where A is disyllabic constituent with initial syllable a, and the two constituents are separated by negation. This form is similar to the a-not-A form with a representing the initial syllable of A and the two separated by negation, but A is joined to another constituent to form

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1012-616: The AB-not-AB pattern, where AB is the constituent consisting of the verb rende , 'know', as A, and the complement zhe ge ren , 'this CL man', as B, combining to form the AB constituent rende zhe ge ren 'know this CL man'. This produces rende zhe ge bu rende zhe ge ren , 'know this CL man not know this CL man.' 你 nǐ you 認得 rèndé know 這 zhè this 個 gè CL 人 Echo answer In linguistics , an echo answer or echo response

1058-566: The Chinese macrolanguage, of whom about three-quarters speak a Mandarin variety. Estimates of the number of global speakers of Sinitic branches as of 2018–2019, both native and non-native, are listed below: Dialectologist Jerry Norman estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible Sinitic languages. They form a dialect continuum in which differences generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though there are also some sharp boundaries. The Sinitic languages can be divided into Macro-Bai languages and Chinese languages, and

1104-428: The affirmative and negative forms of the same verb 'हो' (ho; lit.   ' "is" ' ) and hence is only used when the question asked contains said verb. In other contexts, one must repeat the affirmative or negative forms of the verb being asked, for instance "तिमीले खाना खायौँ?" (timīle khānā khāyau?; lit.   ' "You food ate?" ' ) would be answered by "खाएँ" (khāe˜; lit.   ' "ate" ' ), which

1150-522: The amount of its use may vary between lects. Loss of checked tone is an often cited criterion for Mandarin languages, though lects such as Yangzhounese and Taiyuannese show otherwise. Northeastern Mandarin is spoken in Heilongjiang , Jilin , most of Liaoning and northeastern Inner Mongolia , whereas Beijing Mandarin is spoken in northern Hebei , most of Beijing , parts of Tianjin and Inner Mongolia . The two families' most notable features are

1196-405: The answer to this can be yes or no in response to the first and more explicitly stated alternative. A-not-A questions are not usually used in English, but the following example shows how A-not-A questions are answered. As seen in this example, simply answering "Yes" or "No" does not suffice as a response to the question. This question must be answered in the "A" or "not A" form. If this question

1242-483: The below examples) in order to read grammatically, which changes these approximations to an alternative question (AltQ) type. This extra segment is not seen in Sinitic A-not-A questions, and in fact the Mandarin segment 還是 haishi 'or' is used to contrast the syntax of the A-not-A form and demonstrate the latter's sensitivity to islands . Nevertheless, for the convenience of understanding this phenomenon from

1288-407: The complex constituent AB separated by the negation. AB may represent an embedded clause, a subject joined with a prepositional phrase, or a verb phrase containing a DP. This form contains two unique constituents, A and AB, separated by the negation. A and AB are similar in that AB contains the entire content of A, but constituents are present in AB that are not present in A. This form is similar to

1334-407: The complex constituent AB. For the English question (1.a) "Are you happy or sad?", the response to this question must be an echo answer , stating either "I am happy," or the acceptable alternative, "I am sad". In other words, this sentence is a leading question , where the speaker has an expectation as to what the answer will be. In contrast, (1.b) "Are you happy or not?" is a neutral question where

1380-405: The dark checked into the dark level tone, the light checked into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial , and vowel breaking in tong rime series' ( 通攝 ) checked-tone words, among other features. Jilu Mandarin can be classified into Baotang, Shiji, Canghui and Zhangli. Zhangli is of note due to its preservation of a separate checked tone. Jiaoliao Mandarin

1426-644: The extinct Taz language of Russia is also a Northeastern Mandarin language. Beijing is sometimes included in Northeastern Mandarin due to its distribution of the historical dark checked tone, though is listed as its own group by others, often due to its more regular light checked tones. Jilu Mandarin is spoken in southern Hebei and western Shandong , and is often represented with Jinannese . Notable cities that use Jilu Mandarin lects include Cangzhou , Shijiazhuang , Jinan and Baoding . Characteristically Jilu Mandarin features include merging

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1472-596: The following is one of many potential ways of subdividing these languages. Some varieties, such as Shaozhou Tuhua , are hard to classify and thus are not included in the following briefs. This is a language family first proposed by linguist Zhengzhang Shangfang , and was expanded to include Longjia and Luren. It likely split off from the rest of Sinitic during the Old Chinese period. The languages included are all considered minority languages in China and are spoken in

1518-482: The former Soviet Union . Jin is spoken in most of Shanxi , western Hebei , northern Shaanxi , northern Henan and central Inner Mongolia , often represented by Taiyuannese . It was first proposed as a lect separate from the rest of Mandarin by Li Rong , where it was proposed as lects in and around Shanxi with a checked tone, though this stance is not without disagreement. Jin varieties also often has disyllabic words derived from syllable splitting (分音詞), through

1564-426: The full form of the predicate, "B" stands for the complement, and "a" stands for the first syllable of a disyllabic predicate. Example (3) illustrates that A-not-A pattern, where A is the verb qu 'go', and qu bu qu is 'go not go'. 你 nǐ you 去 qù go 不 bù not 去 ？ qù go 你 去 不 去 ？ nǐ qù bù qù you go not go Are you going? Example (4) illustrates

1610-540: The heavy use of rhotic erhua and seemingly random distribution of the dark checked tone, and generally having four tones with the contours of high flat, rising, dipping, and falling. Northeastern Mandarin, especially in Heilongjiang, contains many loanwords from Russian. Northeastern Mandarin lects can be divided into three main groups, namely Hafu (including Harbinnese and Changchunnese ), Jishen (including Jilinnese and Shenyangnese ), and Heisong. Notably,

1656-409: The historical checked tones with a lesser muddy ( 次濁 ) and clear ( 清 ) initial together with the rising tone, and those with a fully muddy ( 全濁 ) initial are merged with the light level tone. Lanyin Mandarin, spoken in northern Ningxia, parts of Gansu, and northern Xinjiang, is sometimes grouped with Central Plains Mandarin due to its merged lesser light and dark checked tones, though it is realised as

1702-753: The infixation of /(u)əʔ l/ . 笨 pəŋ꜄   → 薄 pəʔ꜇ 愣 ləŋ꜄ 笨 {} 薄 愣 pəŋ꜄ → pəʔ꜇ ləŋ꜄ 'stupid' 滾 ꜂kʊŋ   → 骨 kuəʔ꜆ 攏 ꜂lʊŋ 滾 {} 骨 攏 ꜂kʊŋ → kuəʔ꜆ ꜂lʊŋ 'to roll' As per the Language Atlas by Li, Jin is divided into Dabao, Zhanghu, Wutai, Lüliang, Bingzhou, Shangdang, Hanxin, and Zhiyan branches. Spoken in Yunnan , Guizhou , northern Guangxi , most of Sichuan , southern Gansu and Shaanxi , Chongqing , most of Hubei and bordering parts of Hunan , as well as Kokang of Myanmar and parts of northern Thailand , Southwestern Mandarin speakers take up

1748-596: The most area and population of all Mandarinic language groups, and would be the eighth most spoken language in the world if separated from the rest of Mandarin. Southwestern Mandarinic tends to not have retroflex consonants , and merges all checked tone categories together. Except for Minchi , which has a standalone checked category, the checked tone is merged with another category. Representative lects include Wuhannese and Sichuanese , and sometimes Kunmingnese . Southwestern Mandarin tends to be split into Chuanqian, Xishu, Chuanxi, Yunnan, Huguang and Guiliu branches. Minchi

1794-554: The perspective of an English speaker, the below examples are included to provide context. It is proposed that the A-not-A sequence is morpheme created by the reduplication of the interrogative morpheme (represented by the A in A-not-A). Though the specific syntactic location of this morpheme is not agreed upon, it is generally accepted that the A-not-A sequence is essentially a word formed by the concatenation of an abstract question morpheme and this duplicated predicate, which likens it to

1840-561: The purpose of revealing island sensitivity. The following are examples of A-not-A questions in languages belonging to the Sinitic linguistic family . In forming A-not-A questions, A must remain the same on both sides. A is essentially a variable which can be replaced with a grammatical particle such as a modal , adverb, adjective, verb, or preposition. In Mandarin , there are 6 attested patterns of A-not-A: A-not-A, AB-not-AB, A-not-AB, AB-not-A, a-not-A, and a-not-AB of which "A" stands for

1886-430: The set of languages that contain the A-not-A question type, and though there are close English approximations in some cases, the A-not-A question is more accurately exemplified in Sinitic languages. Below are examples of English approximations of the A-not-A question. They are similar to the Sinitic A-not-A in that they present two possibilities and require an echoed response. However, they include an extra segment ("or" in

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1932-652: The seven traditional groups. Varieties of Mandarin are used in the Western Regions , the Southwest , Huguang , Inner Mongolia , Central Plains and the Northeast , by around three-quarters of the Sinitic-speaking population. Historically, the prestige variety has always been Mandarin, which is still reflected today in Standard Chinese . Standard Chinese is now an official language of

1978-566: The uncontroversial nature of the movement-based analysis of weishenme, the similarity of the NQ to weishenme implies that NQ may be subject to the same analysis of its movement. The dominant view on A-not-A questions is that NQ is similar to a wh-word and related by the movement of NQ. This movement is not seen in alternative-type questions using haishi 'or', and therefore delineates A-not-A questions from alternative questions in terms of structure. Due to this syntactic differentiation, A-not-A questions may be contrasted with haishi questions for

2024-460: The words "yes" and "no" altogether. In Welsh , the words for "yes" and "no" (" ie " and " nage ") are restricted to specialized circumstances. Like Finnish, the main way in these languages to state yes or no, to answer yes–no questions, is to echo the verb of the question. In Irish, the question "An dtiocfaidh tú?" ("Will you come?") will be answered with "Tiocfaidh mé" ("I will come") or "Ní thiochfaidh mé" ("I will not come"). (In Hiberno-English , it

2070-502: Was also interpreted that kam and NQ are "different morphological exponents of the same underlying morpheme". Unlike the yes/no question type formed using the segment "ma", the A-not-A question can be embedded, and may scope beyond its own clause. This scoping may be blocked if the original location of NQ and its intended final location are separated by an island boundary. These distributional characteristics of NQ are parallel to non-nominal adjunct question particle weishenme 'why'. Due to

2116-420: Was asked in the A-not-A pattern, its direct form would be "Did John eat or not eat the beans?". However, the above examples also illustrate that A-not-A type questions in English usually contain some comparative operator such as "or" which is not seen in the Sinitic forms. There is also no significant evidence of either of the disyllabic A-not-A forms in English. These factors complicate the inclusion of English in

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