Mirative and reflective Wh+li in South Slavic

Microvariation in non-standard content questions

Abstract

This paper presents a South Slavic construction, descriptively labelled Wh+li, which uses morphological elements of polar (li) and content (Wh) questions.It manifests different readings in different languages, which I identify as a mirative and a reflective reading. Capitalizing on the evidence for (South Slavic) li as a focus particle, I develop a focus-based syntax-semantic account for each reading: the mirative one as a 'low' li and the reflective one as a 'high' li. I explore the implications of Wh+li for the broader cross-linguistic landscape beyond Slavic, and how this phenomenon can inform the nature of the relation of mirativity and reflectivity to evidentiality.