ki and naki - Alternative Question Particles in Bangla

Abstract

The primary discussion of the paper is centered on two polar question particles in the Eastern Indo-Aryan language Bangla. One is ‘ki’ and the other one is ‘naki.’ These two polar question particles also appear as interrogative disjunction morphemes in alternative questions. This further leads to the argument that there exists a disjunction operator in both polar and alternative questions and the polar question particle is the lexical realization of that disjunction operator.