A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

Polar interrogatives are questions that can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (the reason why they are also called yes/no-questions). Their function is to elicit an answer from the addressee, as in the following example.

                            y/n

         A:  ix₂ hungry

               ‘Are you hungry?’

         B:   yes, (ix₁ hungry)

                ‘Yes, (I am hungry).’

In DGS, polar interrogatives can be answered either by just signing yes or no, or by answering with a full sentence, as it is also pointed out the example above. Another possibility for answering a polar interrogative in DGS is to use a sentence that implicitly answers the question as shown in the next example.

                                             y/n

         A:  ix₂ today party come

               ‘Are you coming to the party today?’

                                     hs

         B:   ix₁ must work

      ‘I have to work.’

By answering with the sentence ‘ix₁ must work’, the addressee implicitly states that he or she doesn’t have time to come to the party. In DGS, the answer has to be accompanied by a negative headshake. Polar interrogatives in DGS are typically accompanied by distinctive non-manual markers, that will be introduced in [Syntax 1.2.1.1.]