Chapter Three: Questions and Negation
Lucien Tesnière, “Sketch of Structural Syntax”

In the sentence Alfred is singing, three questions can be asked (which confirms that it is made up of three elements):
- Who is singing ?
- What is Alfred doing?
- Is Alfred singing?
Nuclear Questions
The sentence Who is singing? deals with the subordinate nucleus, which is emptied of its meaning Alfred, and in which only the interrogative word who remains. We will say this is a nuclear question.
A nuclear question is made with an empty nucleus, but the response comes back with a full nucleus: “Who is singing?” “Alfred is singing.” The nucleus can be filled without repeating the rest of the sentence: “Who is singing?” “Alfred.”
The sentence What is Alfred doing? is also a nuclear question. “What is Alfred doing?” “Alfred is singing” or simply “He sings”. The only difference is that the question deals with the ruling nucleus.
In a nutshell, the sentence : Alfred is singing, made up of two nuclei, can give rise to two nuclear questions. We can see that a sentence can give rise to as many nuclear questions as it has nuclei.
Nuclear questions are made by using interrogative words, the principal of which are:
For actants: who?, what?, whom?
For circumstants: where, when?, how? why?
For epithets: which?
For example: “Which book is Alfred looking at?” “Alfred is looking at the red book” or more simply “The red one”.
Connectional questions
In the sentence Is Alfred singing? the two nuclei Alfred and is singing are full. The question is not nuclear. Effectively Alfred and the act of singing are a given. What we don’t know is if the two ideas are on point, that is if there is a connection between them. The question concerns the connection. We will say that there is connectional question.
In French the connectional question is expressed by using inversion, which consists in repeating the first actant in the form of the apparent subject il: Alfred chante-t-il? Another more common approach consists in placing the frozen group phrase est-ce que: Est-ce que Alfred chante?
A connectional question is made with full nucleus and the resulting corresponding response is made with an empty nucleus. That is why a single word suffices: yes, no: “Is Alfred singing?” “no.”
Yes means There is a connection.
No means There is not a connection.
In a nutshell, the sentence Alfred is singing can give rise to three questions, of which two questions are nuclear and one connectional, which confirms the reality of the notion of connection after the fact.
Negation
What is true for questions is equally true for negations, which can be nuclear or connectional.
There is nuclear negation in No one is singing, Alfred is doing nothing. Nuclear negation is made via negative words, the principal ones of which are:
For actants: no one, nothing.
For circumstants: nowhere, never, in no way.
For epithet: no.
There is inversely connectional negation in: Alfred is not singing or in the French Alfred ne chante pas. In French, connectional questions are made in a rather complex way that we will not enter into the detail of which, using the two words ne and pas, that Damourette and Pichon, whose terminology is here excellent and recommendable, name the discordantial (ne) and the forclusive (pas).
