In their pioneering work on Urdu/Hindi polar kya, Bhatt and Dayal (2020) propose a new class of question particles, polar question particles. As part of their analysis, the authors also argue that alternative questions (AltQs) in Urdu/Hindi are disjunctions of polar questions (PolQs). However, Bhatt and Dayal’s (2020) foundational work leaves unexplained potential counterexamples to their proposal with respect to embedded contexts, as well as not doing justice to speakers’ intuitions regarding the use of kya to sometimes trigger sarcasm or politeness inferences. In this paper, we pay attention to those cases in conjunction with other available empirical observations to paint a more explanatory picture of what kya is and what kya does. In this picture, kya is a focus-sensitive particle conveying the attitude holder’s uncertainty. We also argue that an analysis of Urdu/Hindi AltQs as disjunction of PolQs (across the board) is untenable in view of the new empirical evidence.
