TYPES OF APPROXIMATION EXPRESSED BY ENGLISH AND BULGARIAN ALTERNATIVE INTERROGATIVE STRUCTURES

Abstract

The paper presents the results from a corpus-based study of the types of approximation expressed by English and Bulgarian alternative interrogative structures. Corpora data indicate that the meaning of approximation is much more characteristic of Bulgarian alternative interrogative structures than of their English counterparts. Depending on whether their constituents have exact values or one of them has a wh- (or k-) value, the alternative interrogative structures (AISs) fall into two groups – AISs that express approximation with exact values and AISs that express approximation with (an) exact value(s) and a wh- (k-) value. Different types of approximation are distinguished within each group.