Abstract:

This article discusses the positioning of wh words in Modern Laos Sign Language. Research indicates that there are two common patterns for the position of wh words in spoken languages: the initial position and in situ (Dryer 2013). However, in some sign languages, it seems that wh word positioning is sentence-final, as shown in recent research (Woodward 2018) on Southeast Asian sign languages. This article discusses the positioning of wh words; some Southeast Asian sign languages have final wh word positioning, which differs from the majority of spoken languages (Dryer 2013). For instance, in the data that I have collected and analyzed from Modern Laos Sign Language, wh words always occurred at the end of the sentence. Moreover, the consultants that I interviewed rejected sentences with wh words in situ and at the beginning of sentences. This is true not only of simple subject and direct object wh questions, but also of several other grammatical structures.

摘要：

本文讨论现代老挝手语中wh词的定位。研究表明， wh词在口语中的位置有两种常见模式：初始位置和原位 (Dryer 2013)。然而，在一些手语中， wh词定位似乎是句末的，如最近对东南亚手语的研究（Woodward 2018）所示。本文讨论wh词的定位；一些东南亚手语有 final wh词定位，这与大多数口语不同（Dryer 2013）。例如，在我从现代老挝手语中收集和分析的数据中，wh单词总是出现在句子的末尾。此外，我采访过的顾问拒绝在原处和句子开头使用wh词的句子。这不仅适用于提问的简单主语和直接宾语，也适用于其他几种语法结构。