On Polar Question in Echie and English: A Transformational Approach

Abstract

The formation of polar question also called a Yes-No question, appears to be language-specific, a situation which makes Echie speakers to find it difficult to accommodate the system of the English language, vice versa. This paper, using the qualitative design and the transformation approach, investigated the structural forms of both languages. The analysis showed great structural differences in both languages: while there is a swop in the position of the subject and the auxiliary in English, there is no such in Echie. In Echie, there are two forms of polar question realization: the resumptive pronoun type and the emphatic construction type. The paper noted that, although, the structural and derivational forms parametrically differ, polar questions exist in both languages and also perform the same syntactic and functional communicative roles.

Key Words: Polar, resumptive, inversion, emphatic, transformation