Catalan

Jose Ignacio Hualde

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136899713
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

First Published in 2004. Among the languages of Europe spoken by bilingual communities, Catalan has a special status because of its vitality. Catalan enjoys official recognition in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, in spain and in the principality of Andorra. Catalan is of importance within the Romance family because it constitutes a link between the Ibero-Romance family of languages and the Gallo-Romance branches. This book will be of interest to both Romanists and general linguists engaged in comparative work.

1 SYNTAX

1.1 General questions

1.1.1 Sentence types

1.1.1.1 Direct and quoted speech

There may not be any difference between direct and quoted speech. In oral narratives it is frequent to leave quoted utterances as they were uttered preceded by expressions such as diu ‘he says’ or dic ‘I say’:

(1) ahir era amb en Pere i diu:

yesterday be.ip.1s with art Peter and say.3s

vols venir a sopar a casa meva? i dic:

want.2s come.if to dine.if to house my.fs and say. 1s

no, gràcies, no tine temps.

no thanks no have.1s time

‘Yesterday I was with Peter, and he says: do you want to come home for supper? And I say: no, thanks, I don’t have time.’

A second possibility is to employ subordination to the verb used for quoting. In this second case (indirect quoted speech), changes must be made in deictic elements and in verb tense:

(2) ahir era amb en Pere i em va dir

yesterday be.ip.1s with art Peter and 1s pr.3s say.if

que si volia anar a sopar a casa seva,

that if want.ip.1s go.if to dine.if to house his.fs

i jo li vaig dir que no, que no tenia temps.

and I 3s.d pr.1s say. if that no that no have.ip.1s time

‘Yesterday I was with Peter and he asked (told) me if I wanted to go to his house for dinner; and I said (that no) that I didn’t have time’

It is also possible to leave the verb of quoting in the present tense even if changes in deixis are otherwise made:

(3) … i jo li dic que no tenia temps

and I 3s.d say.1s that no have.ip.1s time

‘… and I say to him that I did not have time’

The way indirect statements, questions and commands are marked is studied in more detail in 1.1.2.2.3-1.1.2.2.5. Shift of tenses in reported speech is studied in 1.1.2.5.

1.1.1.2 Interrogative sentences

Questions are marked primarily by intonation. Interrogative sentences lack the final fall in pitch that statements present (see section 3.3.4.1).

Here we will study the properties of yes-no questions, question-word questions, echo-questions and answers separately.

1.1.1.2.1 Yes-no questions

Neutral yes-no questions

Yes-no questions are distinguished from statements by their intonation. In some central varieties, including Barcelona, the interrogative clause is usually (but not obligatorily) preceded by que‘that’:

(4) que vols més patates?

that want.2s more potatoes

‘Do you want more potatoes?’

(5) que aniràs a València a I’ estiu?

that go.fu.2s to in the summer

‘Are you going to go to Valencia in the summer?’

This use of que in questions, when transferred to Spanish, is stereotypical of a Catalan background.

The subject is normally postposed to the verb and subcategorized complements in yes-no questions:

(6) que hi és, la Maria?

that loc is art

‘Is Mary there?’

(7) (que) va comprar un cotxe nou, el teu germà?

that pr.2s buy.if a car new.ms art your.ms brother

‘Did your brother buy a new car?’

(8) (que) viu a Figueres, en Pere?

that live.3s in art

‘Does Peter live in Figueres?’

If in examples such as those in (6)-(8) the subject is not postposed, the sentence would be interpreted as an echo-question (see 1.1.1.2.3.1) or otherwise as introducing the subject of the sentence as topic.

Leading yes-no questions

1.1.1.2.1.2.1 Leading yes-no questions expecting the answer ‘yes’

When the expected answer is ‘yes’, the sentence carries statement intonation (i.e. a falling contour from the last stressed vowel) and is followed by no? ‘no’, veritat?, ‘truth’, eh? (Girona) or oi? (Barcelona) with a higher tone:

(9) vindràs a la festa, no?

come.fu.2s to the party no

‘You will come to the party, right?

(10) el teu germà va trobar treball a Tarragona, veritat?

the your.m brother pr.2s find.if work in truth

‘Your brother found a job in Tarragona, right?

Another possibility is to start the sentence with oi queleh que:

(11) oi/eh que la capital dels Estats Units és Washington?

right that the capital of.the States United is

‘The capital of the United States is Washington, right?’

(12) oi que vindrà demà, el teu germà?

right that come.fu.3s tomorrow the your.ms brother

‘Your brother will come tomorrow, won’t he?’

In the Camp de Tarragona region no que ‘not that’ is used with the same function. In this region, thus, a question such as no que vindràs? ‘you will come, right?’ is the equivalent of oi que vindràs (Barcelona) or eh que vindràs? (Girona).

That the expected answer is yes can be reinforced by means of si que ‘yes that’ in preverbal position:

(13) si que vindràs a la festa, no?

yes that come.fu.2s to the party no

‘Of course you will come to the party, right?

(14) el teu germà si que va trobar treball

the your.ms brother yes that pr.3s find.if work

a Tarragona, oi?

in right

‘Of course, your brother found a job in Tarragona, right?

(15) si que coneixes la història, no?

yes that know.2s the story no

‘Of course, you know the story, right?

(16) en Joan si que hi ha estat a Paris abans, veritat?

art yes that loc have.3s be.pp in before truth

‘Of course, John has been to Paris before, right?’

Also emphatically leading towards the answer ‘yes’ are negative sentences followed by o qué ‘or what’:

(17) Speaker A ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Glosses
• Notes on Catalan orthography
• 1. SYNTAX
• 1.2.4.2. Arguments (complements) of prepositional phrases
• 2.1. Inflection
• 2.1.3.11.2. Impersonal passive
• 3. PHONOUDGY
• 4. IDEOPHONES AND INTERJECTIONS
• 5. LEXICON
• Appendix: common irregular verbs
• References
• Index