A language with no questions?

[SylbanQuin]

So, in the meanderings of my conlanging mind, I have been contemplating a language without questions. There are no niceties- instead of "Who ate my cookie?", these people make declaration (Somebody ate my cookie.), accusation ((I think) you ate my cookie!), or demand (Tell me who ate my cookie!). I was wondering if there are any real-world languages or cultures with a similar concept? Am I missing a key function of a question? Besides politeness, I mean.

[linguistcat]

Questions aren't used to be polite, they are used to gather information. In fact there are languages where asking questions directly is considered impolite (for example Japanese). But they still have ways of forming questions when they are necessary.

Sure you could make a declarative statement of "Someone ate my cookie" with the implication that you would like to know who ate it, but that's not the same as asking "Who ate my cookie?" Especially since, in another circumstance, you might have no intention of knowing who ate your cookie and just want to state that someone did eat it.

Granted, it could be a fun challenge to make a language where questions are not used, and instead other forms of statements are used along with context to imply you want more information, but I don't think it's something that natural languages do. That said, not all conlangs need to be naturalistic, so if you really want to pursue this idea, have fun.

[Xhin]

I agree with the cat.

How would you go about gathering information in such a language? Or do your people just assume things and get corrected?

Like, the above sentence could have instead been:

It doesn't make sense how they would get information when they needed to learn something. Though your people might just assume things and get corrected.

[Pabappa]

You could arguably get by without polar questions at least .... "I think you want a cookie!" .... but in a normal situation this would prob develop into a question particle even so.

[zompist]

I like to see some con-pragmatics. To explore it, I'd suggest looking at a wide variety of questions and seeing how you'd handle them. E.g.:

pure information: Where's the bathroom? Is the electricity off? Who's your manager?
irrealis: Is the duke as reliable as he seems? Am I made of money?
hypothesis: Why is the sky blue? A language with no questions?
offer: Would you like some tea?
clarification: Did you mean lightning, or the lightning bug?
stating problems: How do we get over this wall? What is the lowest common denominator of 60 and 792?
insinuation: Are you a coward?
seeking reassurance: Do you love me?

If there's a social taboo involved, then instead of making it universal, you might think who has the taboo and who doesn't, and why.

Finally, rather than removing a "nicety", you're adding indirection— e.g. people don't straightforwardly ask a question, they make declarative statements and expect people to respond to them as if they were questions. That's fine, and very human, but it's adding complication, not removing it.

[SylbanQuin]

My original question has been potentially answered by the cat- that this is more conlang fodder than natural language feature. That said, lets move forward with this thought experiment. Some additional aspects of this fictional people:

Sociologically, they are a relatively primitive tribal people. No phones, no lights, no motorcars. Not a single luxury. Iron-age tools are beyond their ability to manufacture, but they have limited access to them by trading/stealing/conquering from neighboring cultures and other tribes.

They have no word for 'equal' or 'equality'. All else being identical: an object seen first; or furthest to the right; or some other form of discrimination is considered the superior. This goes for every member of the tribe as well. Most of the time, people fall into their respective place without much complaint. Once in a while, squabbles will arise; people are complicated- one might be great at cooking but not as good at hunting, for example. Within the culture those jobs have a hierarchy as well. Strength, size, and prowess are more desirable traits than intelligence or artistry. By adulthood, this hierarchy is firmly established and can only change by acknowledgment of those of superior status. Note that superiority does not automatically mean disdain for those below them- a lowly novice is still important to the seasoned hunter, and all benefit from a good cook.

How a person speaks is largely dependent on who they are speaking to (t/v)- different strategies depending on their position in the hierarchy. To those inferior, demands and accusations are common. For those mildly superior, mild aggrandizement is called for and declarations are the preferred. As that line increases, so does the level of groveling. Exaggerating a superior's position too much is an insult, so care must be taken to know not only your place, but theirs as well.

With a culture so reliant on hierarchy, defending one's position is a key to survival. An accusation begs for a defensive response. A demand assumes obedience or a valid reason not to. By contrast, a declaration can be ignored or acknowledged at the superiors whim (as an assertion of their benevolence/malevolence to those they are above; a non-response is assumed to be a negative response).

So, with all that in mind: I would appreciate your thoughts/solutions/critical thinking and how you might tackle this. (As opposed to a demand, "Discuss/describe your thoughts/etc." which seems quite brusque to me, an assumption of seniority. What are your thoughts/etc.?)

[akam chinjir]

There's at least one language in which polar questions aren't marked at all (not even by intonation).

It's common for content question words ("who?") to do double duty as indefinite pronouns ("someone"). Usually the question word usage is basic, though I have a vague memory that there's at least one where the indefinites are generic nouns ("body") that then get used for questions. But even if my memory is right, I'm not sure you get actual ambiguity, questions might be distinguishable by word order or intonation.

One thing: a language might have no unambiguous interrogative forms, but if the equivalent of "someone ate my cookie" is a normal way to solicit information, then it might make most sense to consider that an interrogative.

[Xwtek]

There's at least one language in which polar questions aren't marked at all (not even by intonation).

It's common for content question words ("who?") to do double duty as indefinite pronouns ("someone"). Usually the question word usage is basic, though I have a vague memory that there's at least one where the indefinites are generic nouns ("body") that then get used for questions. But even if my memory is right, I'm not sure you get actual ambiguity, questions might be distinguishable by word order or intonation.

One thing: a language might have no unambiguous interrogative forms, but if the equivalent of "someone ate my cookie" is a normal way to solicit information, then it might make most sense to consider that an interrogative.

Uh, isn't most such language have particle to distinguish between interrogative usage and indefinite usage such as:
apapun, 何も, etc

[Moose-tache]

I've tried this exact experiment before. The language originally lacked any formal grammatical marking for interrogatives or imperatives. Instead there was a robust system of topic marking, underspecification, and various ways to imply performative speech or speech that sought to alter the relationship between the speaker and the listener. It turns out, you can easily waggle your rhetorical eyebrows at the information you want without WH words, and most questions are doing more than just gather information, so there is a variety of ways you can get that across as well. The only hard part was getting rid of imperatives AND interrogatives at the same time, since speakers of natural languages frequently lean on one to take pressure off the other ("Will you refill my glass?", "Tell me who ate the pie."). Ultimately this system had to bend a little for the sake of naturalism. But if you like the idea, go for it! Like Zompist said, pragmatics is fun in a conlang.

[akam chinjir]

Uh, isn't most such language have particle to distinguish between interrogative usage and indefinite usage such as:
apapun, 何も, etc

Sure, but I was talking about languages where it's just the question word---it's not as common, but it definitely happens.

[missals]

There actually apparently is a language in Mesomaerica that has absolutely no grammatical method for forming questions at all, not through a particle, word order, intonation, or anything. I.e. questions do not exist as a distinct type of sentence - requests for information, if not phrased as imperatives ("Tell me where you're going"), must be pragmatically implied through declaratives, e.g. "It looks like you're going to the store" or "I didn't know you were leaving".

Unfortunately, I can't find the paper where I read about this now. I am absolutely certain that I am not imagining this. If I ever can find the paper again I will link it here.

[akam chinjir]

WALS (Polar questions) gives Mixtec (Chalcatongo) as its one example of a language in which polar questions aren't distinguished, that's probably the one I was thinking of, but it looks like it's got clause-initial question words, so not the one missals has read about.

[alynnidalar]

This is more of a philosophical question than a practical one, but if you have a language where you can get information out of people but no distinct question forms/words... is it really a language with no questions, or is it just a language that doesn't distinguish grammatically/syntactically/whatever between questions and other forms of statements?

[Moose-tache]

Yes. We're concerned here with the language's grammatical ability to mark questions, not whether or not information gathering exists. Similarly, you can wave a gun in someone's face and say "I sure like those shoes." And you'll get a nice new pair of shoes regardless of whether or not you used a grammatical imperative. A good analogy might be the future tense; no language deprives its speakers of describing events that will happen but have not happened yet, but not every language has a future tense.