The study examines yes/no questions in the Ẹ̀dó language with the aim of identifying the morphemes that function as yes/no question markers. Relying on primary data generated from a survey, the study proposes that there are five overt yes/no question markers in the language. Four of these question markers (té, yí, rà, and kué) have been discussed in the literature, but this study provides a different account of the role of té in polar questions, and suggests that another morpheme, i.e., nè can be classified as a yes/no question marker. Furthermore, the study reveals that the question markers are homonyms of other lexical and functional words. This has implications for the distribution of the question markers, as the co-occurrence with their homonyms yields unacceptable sentences. The paper describes this constraint on the use of the markers within the framework of Distributed Morphology.

The aim of this paper is to explain the syntax of yes/no questions in Ẹ̀dó language. In line with its aim, the paper answers two research questions. First, what is the structure of yes/no questions? Second, how is this structure derived? The study relies on primary data from a questionnaire survey and observation of the language in use, as well as secondary data from a textual corpus. The corpus shows Ẹ̀dó forms polar questions in two ways: the use of prosody and five question markers. This paper confirms the position of previous studies; these markers have distinct distributions. Notwithstanding, it posits Ẹ̀dó polar questions have the same structure. This submission is born