Embedded polar interrogatives in Turkish Sign Language

Abstract

Polar interrogatives in Turkish Sign Language are marked with a special head movement, HEAD FORWARD. In this study I look at the distribution of this nonmanual marker in the embedded context and show that it is likely not merely a syntactic clause-typer as previously claimed in the literature. My findings reveal that this nonmanual marker’s presence and lack thereof distinguish between the semantic types question and proposition , and that it differs from its wh-counterpart, the HEAD BACKWARD, in that it is the sole syntactic clause-typer of the interrogative type, i.e. single conjunct polar, that it marks.