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- Title
Tag Questions in Manipuri and German.
- Authors
Thokchom, Niranjana; Singh, Yashawanta
- Abstract
In Meiteilon/Manipuri, a Tibeto-Burman language, questions are formed by adding question markers like -la/-ra -dra (-də-ra)/-tra (-tə-ra) etc. to the derived noun (deverbal). Questions are formed in German with the change of word order like English. Manipuri has two types of Tag Questions, Reverse Tag- and Constant Tag Question. Reverse tag is used commonly in other languages also. Constant Tag on the other hand are used in very specific cases, for instance Constant tag is used in declarative with tag, positive proposition and positive tag question, however it does not go along with interrogative in Manipuri. While Constant Tag is found with limited lexical items, Reverse Tag on the other hand is clearly visible in TQ in German, an Indo-European language. German language uses lexical items such as nicht wahr, oder, gell (used in southern part of Germany), stimmt's, richtig, ja, ne etc. to form tag questions. While nicht wahr is used in speech as well as written form the other tags are mostly used in speech form and seldom in written form. In studying the tag questions in Manipuri and German it has been observed that the choice of auxiliary does not need to agree with the tense, aspect and modality. As in Manipuri, tag-question are constructed by the verbal phrase only and there is no existence of auxiliary verb. In German although the auxiliary exist in the sentence, tag questions are formed by the addition of lexical tag items (as mentioned above) only, irrespective of the tense.
- Subjects
INTERROGATIVE (Grammar); RHETORICAL questions; TAG questions; QUESTIONING; LEADING questions (Law)
- Publication
Language in India, 2017, Vol 17, Issue 8, p163
- ISSN
1930-2940
- Publication type
Article