Interrogative constructions are the linguistic forms by which questions are expressed. Their analysis is of great interest to linguists, as well as to computer scientists, human-computer interface designers, and philosophers. Interrogative constructions have played a central role in the development of modern syntactic theory. Nonetheless, to date most syntactic work has taken place quite separately from formal semantic and pragmatic work on interrogatives. Although there has by now been a significant amount of work on interrogatives across a variety of languages, there exist few syntactic and semantic treatments that provide a comprehensive account of a wide range of interrogative constructions and uses in a single language. This book closes the gap in research on this subject. By developing the frameworks of Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Situation Semantics, the authors provide an account that rigorously integrates syntactic, semantic, and contextual dimensions of interrogatives. The challenge of providing exhaustive coverage of the interrogative constructions of English, including various constructions that occur solely in dialogue interaction, leads to new insights about a variety of contentious theoretical issues. These include matters of semantic ontology, the quantificational status of wh-phrases, the semantic effect of wh-fronting, the status of constructions in grammatical theory, the integration of illocutionary information in the grammar, and the nature of ellipsis resolution in dialogue. The account is stated with sufficient rigor to enable fairly direct computational implementation.

Preliminary material /Editors Theory of Questions -- INTRODUCTION /Editors Theory of Questions -- ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRELIMINARIES /Editors Theory of Questions -- SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS /Editors Theory of Questions -- SENTENCES AND PICTURES OF SITUATIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- SEMANTICO-CATEGORIAL ANALYSIS /Editors Theory of Questions -- THE COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTION OF QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- THE STRUCTURE OF NATURAL-LANGUAGE QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- SEMANTICO-CATEGORIAL DESCRIPTION OF QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- COGNITIVE CONTENT AND COGNITIVE CONTEXT OF QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- ANSWERS /Editors Theory of Questions -- EMBEDDED QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- THE ANALYSIS OF EROTETIC SITUATION /Editors Theory of Questions -- QUESTIONS IN SCIENCE /Editors Theory of Questions -- EROTETIC REASONING /Editors Theory of Questions -- PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- QUESTIONS IN SURVEYS /Editors Theory of Questions -- QUESTIONS IN DIDACTIC TESTS /Editors Theory of Questions -- QUESTIONS IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS /Editors Theory of Questions -- PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- CONCLUSIONS /Editors Theory of Questions -- FROM THE HISTORY OF EROTETICS IN POLAND IN THE 20TH CENTURY144 /Editors Theory of Questions -- REFERENCES /Editors Theory of Questions -- NAME INDEX /Editors Theory of Questions.

This volume brings the data that many in formal linguistics have dismissed as peripheral straight into the core of syntactic theory. By bringing together experts from syntax, semantics, pragmatics, philosophy of language, language acquisition, aphasia, and pidgin and creole studies, the volume makes a multidisciplinary case for the existence of nonsententials, which are analyzed in various chapters as root phrases and small clauses (Me; Me First!; Him worry?!; Class in session), and whose distinguishing property is the absence of Tense, and, with it, any syntactic phenomena that rely on Tense, including structural Nominative Case. Arguably, the lack of Tense specification is also responsible for the dearth of indicative interpretations among nonsententials, as well as for their heavy reliance on pragmatic context. So pervasive is nonsentential speech across all groups, including normal adult speech, that a case can be made that continuity of grammar lies in nonsentential, rather than sentential speech.

This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax, conducted within the formal semantics tradition. A wide range of topics are covered, including weak-strong exhaustiveness, maximality, functional answers, single-multiple-trapped list answers, embedding predicates, quantificational variability, concealed questions, weak islands, polar and alternative questions, negative polarity, and non-canonical questions. The literature on this rich set of topics, theoretically diverse and scattered across multiple venues, is often hard to assimilate. Veneeta Dayal, drawing on her own research, brings them together for the first time in a coherent, concise, and well-structured whole. Each chapter begins with a non-technical introduction to the issues discussed; semantically sophisticated accounts are then presented incrementally, with the major points summarized at the end of each section. Written in an accessible style, this book provides both a guide to one of the most vibrant areas of research in natural language and an account of how this area of study is developing. It will be a unique resource for the novice and expert alike, and seeks to appeal to a variety of readers without compromising depth and breadth of coverage.

Research on left periphery phenomena has increased in the last 20 years, resulting in consistent studies from a wide range of languages and a fruitful debate on the functional projections within the CP system. Throughout these years, important contributions have been made on Brazilian Portuguese, especially on wh-interrogative sentences, focalization, topicalization and relative clauses. As for exclamative and imperative sentences, however, there is a considerable research gap in all grammatical levels. Regarding interrogatives, semantic and prosodic studies are still lacking (as well as research on the acquisition and processing of these constructions). This collected volume fills some of those gaps, gathering studies on wh-exclamatives, imperatives and wh-questions in Brazilian Portuguese which approach syntactical, semantical and prosodic aspects of these constructions through a rich and unregistered set of data. They also deliver novel acquisition and diachronic data that will further both the comprehension of Brazilian Portuguese grammar and the ongoing discussions on left periphery phenomena.

The volume Questions in Discourse - Vol. 1 Semantics contains a comprehensive overview of the semantic analysis of questions and their role in structuring discourse, next to a series of in-depth contributions on individual aspects of question meanings. The expert contributions offer novel accounts of semantic phenomena such as negation and biased questions, question embedding, exhaustivity, disjunction in alternative questions, and superlative quantification particles in questions. Some accounts are modelled in the framework of inquisitive semantics, whereas others employ alternative semantics, and yet others point to the discourse-structuring potential of marked questions. All contributions are easily accessible against the background of the general introduction. Together, they give an excellent overview of current trends in question semantics.

Get to grips with the fundamentals of semantics research. Written by a team of world-class experts, this book introduces the subject for a broad audience of linguists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists. It explores the core concepts of sentential semantics and includes sections on questions, imperatives, copular clauses, and existential sentences. It also features essential research on sentence types, and explains central concepts in the theory of information structure and discourse structure. Now in paperback for the first time since its original publication, the material in this modern classic is an ideal resource for anyone involved in semantics research.