The term content question (cq) refers to a type interrogative phrase (IP) that cannot be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (or any synonyms for these that the language may use). A content question is considered dependent if it is subordinate to a main clause whose lexical verb indicates a question, and if the question is not a direct quote.[1] This parameter describes the word order of dependent content questions. Prototypical sentences that should be analyzed contain a transitive verb (V), a subject (S) that is also the agent and is represented by the explicit noun, and an object that is also the patient (P) of the verb. Auxiliary verbs should be treated as V. Word order refers to the relative positions of these three items, with no consideration of any other words that may appear between them. If more than one word order is possible, the most neutral order should be considered.

Types:

NoOblCq: The category of dependent content question is not present in the language.[2]

OblCq=Cq: The word order of S, V, and O in dependent content questions is the same as in independent content questions.

OblCq=Dclr: The word order of S, V, and O in dependent content questions is the same as the basic word order of the corresponding neutral declarative sentence containing the asked-about part of it; it is different from that of independent content questions.[3]

OblCq=Spec: The word order of S, V, and O in dependent content questions is different from that of both the corresponding neutral declarative sentence containing the asked-about part of it and independent content questions.

When a language displays more than one word order, multiple values can be listed. If one word order is dominant, a slash (/) can separate the values, with the dominant value appearing first; if none are is dominant, they are listed with a ampersand (&) separating them. The use of parentheses indicates the strategy is not obligatory.

[1] When the question is restructured into a statement, with or without a shift in the grammatical subject of the verb, the clause is considered to constitute an indirect quote, rather than a direct quote. Both criteria can be seen in English. Compare the question Where are you going? to its indirect quote: She asked me where I was going.

[2] In most languages that display this value, content questions can only appear within subordinate clauses as direct quotations.

[3] Neutral word order is not necessarily the same as the word order of the answer to the question. Neutral declarative word order is, instead, equivalent to the basic word order of the language, which is detailed in the parameter Basic word order (SVO). In basic word order, S constitutes the topic (or theme) of the sentence, with all other elements of the sentence belonging to the comment (or rheme).