With well more than chance frequency, when question particles or affixes are specified in position by reference to the sentence as a whole, if initial, such elements are found in prepositional languages, and, if final, in postpositional.
Standardized
When question particles or affixes are specified in position by reference to the sentence as a whole, IF they are initial, THEN there are prepositions, and IF they are final, THEN there are postpositions.
Yoruba (Defoid, Benue-Congo), Thai (Daic) have final Q particles and are prepositional; Lithuanian (Baltic, Indo-European) has initial Q particles and is postpositional (Greenberg 1963: 81);Cora (Uto-Aztecan) has initial Q particles, but postpositions;Yaitepec Chatino, Peñoles Mixtec, Trique (all Oto-Manguean), and Huave (isolate) have final Q particles but are prepositional;Isthmus Zapotec (Oto-Manguean) has an optional initial Q particle, obligatory final Q particle and is prepositional (Pickett 1983: 540)
1. This is generally in accord with Ultan’s findings, except that, of the languages sampled for this feature with question particle initial or enclitic to the sentence-initial constituent, 24% are postpositional (Ultan 1978: 227, fn 12).2. Note also the discussion in Joseph 1992: 32-37 about the relevance of Greenberg’s statistical universal.3. See also ##671, 491. #491 can be derived by transitivity from ##671, 495.
1. This is generally in accord with Ultan’s findings, except that, of the languages sampled for this feature with question particle initial or enclitic to the sentence-initial constituent, 24% are postpositional (Ultan 1978: 227, fn 12).2. Note also the discussion in Joseph 1992: 32-37 about the relevance of Greenberg’s statistical universal.3. See also ##671, 491. #491 can be derived by transitivity from ##671, 495.