Verbs and particles in minimal answers to yes-no
questions in Czech
Hana Gruet-Skrabalova
To cite this version:
Hana Gruet-Skrabalova. Verbs and particles in minimal answers to yes-no questions in Czech. Formal
Description of Slavic Languages 10, Dec 2013, Leipzig, Germany. pp.197-215. hal-00911083
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, Verbs and particles in minimal answers
to yes-no questions in Czech
Hana Gruet-Skrabalova
Clermont Université, LRL EA 999
1. Introduction
Czech belongs to those languages1, in which a yes-no question can be minimally
answered not only by answering particles ano (‘yes’) and ne (‘no’), but also by
echoing the verb of the question, eventually by combining these two elements,
see (1).2 When the answer is negative, the verb bears the negative prefix ne-.
(1) Jsou rodiče doma? – Ano. / Jsou. // Ne. / Nejsou.
are.3pl parents home yes are.3pl no neg.are.3pl
‘Are the parents at home?’ ‘Yes (they are).’ ‘No (they are not).’
The verb in the answer must be finite and bear the same tense feature as the verb
in the question, see (2). In case of complex verbal forms with the auxiliary verb
být (‘be’), past and conditional clitic auxiliaries cannot constitute felicitous an-
swers. This follows if we assume that clitic auxiliaries only bear agreement fea-
tures and the lexical participle the interpretable tense feature, as proposed by
Veselovská (1995). Consequently, the participle may combine with negation and
constitute a felicitous answer to polar questions in (3). The future forms of the
auxiliary verb být are expected to appear in minimal answers for they bear both
tense and agreement features and combine with negation, see (4)3.
(2) Pozveš Marii na tu oslavu? – (Ne)pozvu. / *(Ne)pozval.
invite.2sg Mary.acc to that party (neg)invite.1sg (neg)invited.sg.m
‘Will you invite Mary to the party?’ ‘I will (not).’
(3) Koupil jsi / bys mu to? – *(Ne)jsem. / *(Ne)bych / (Ne)koupil.
bought.sg.m aux/cond.2sg him it (neg)aux.1sg / (neg)cond.1sg /(neg)bought
‘Did / Would you buy it for him?’ ‘I did (not). / ‘I would (not).’
(4) Budou pracovat i v neděli? – (Ne)budou.
fut.3pl work also on Sunday (neg)fut.1pl
‘Will they work on Sunday too?’ ‘They will (not).’
1 E.g. Basque (Laka 1990), Irish (McCloskey 1991), Portuguese (Martins 1994), Welsh
(Jones 1999), Finnish (Holmberg 2001).
2 I do not deal here with answers like možná ('maybe'), samozřejmě ('of course'), and so on.
3 The same contrast between the future auxiliary forms and the past/conditional clitic aux-
iliaries can be observed in VP-ellipsis constructions (Gruet-Skrabalova 2012b).
, 2 Hana Gruet-Skrabalova
The data presented above raise two issues that will be addressed here: (i) what is
the syntactic structure of minimal verbal answers? (ii) what is the syntactic and
semantic status of answering particles?
The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, I argue, following Laka (1990),
that minimal verbal answers involve clausal ellipsis after movement of the finite
verb bearing the focused polarity feature to the CP domain. In section 3, I show
the distribution of particles in answers to positive and negative questions. In sec-
tion 4, I argue that negative questions contain expletive or true negation. In the
former case, they behave as positive questions. In the latter case, they behave as
negative declaratives that convey a negative presupposition and can be
(dis)confirmed by the particles. In section 5, I propose that particles are generat-
ed in the specifier of the polarity projection where they express absolute or rela-
tive polarity, depending on the polarity of the question. The focused verb moves
to the Focus projection below the PolP. The complement of the head of PolP or
FocP can be elided for they are given in the question. Section 6 sums up the
proposed analysis.
2. The syntax of verbal answers
In this section, I argue that minimal verbal answers involve ellipsis of the whole
clause except for the finite verb that has been moved to the CP domain for it
bears the polarity feature that is focused in yes-no question/answer pairs.
2.1 Absence of arguments
Although Czech is a pro-drop language, it is not plausible that minimal verbal
answers are full sentences with null pronominal arguments. On the one hand,
overt complements are disallowed with the echoing participle, but must be overt
in declarative sentences, compare (5a) and (5b). The same holds of reflexive
pronouns that are excluded from answers, although they are obligatory in ques-
tions and independent clauses, compare (6a) and (6b).
(5a) Poslali jste Pavlovi ten dopis? – Poslali. / *Poslali mu ho.4
sent.2pl.m aux.2pl Paul.dat this letter.acc sent.pl.m sent.pl.m him it
‘Did you send the letter to Paul?’ ‘Yes (we did).’
(5b) Rodiče napsali Pavlovi dopis a my jsme *(mu ho) poslali.
parents wrote.pl.m Paul.dat letter.acc and we aux.1pl him it sent.pl.m
‘The parents wrote a letter for Paul, and we (then) sent it to him.’
4 Poslali mu ho would be a correct answer if the subject were 3p.pl: ‘they sent it to him’.
