The emergence of gender and number coding in content questions
A function can emerge as a result of there already being a formal means of coding in the language, and this formal means has either no function attached to it or has a function in a domain X and is available to code a function in the domain Y. The chapter addresses opportunistic emergence of coding gender and number of participants in de dicto and de re questions. The importance of opportunistic emergence of a function is that the functions so emerging provide the evidence that (a) the communicative need is not a necessary motivation for the emergence of a function; (b) the presence of such function is the evidence that meaning may emerge out of the formal means available in the language rather than the formal means are created to code the meaning.