Veneeta Dayal
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199281268
- eISBN:
- 9780191757396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199281268.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter considers three types of answers: weakly exhaustive, strongly exhaustive, and non-exhaustive/mention-some answers. Two lines of approach are discussed, one that locates the variation ...
More
This chapter considers three types of answers: weakly exhaustive, strongly exhaustive, and non-exhaustive/mention-some answers. Two lines of approach are discussed, one that locates the variation between strong and weak exhaustiveness in answerhood operators, another where variation is due to the optional presence of exhaustification operators in the question nucleus. The second issue addressed is the ambiguity between mention-some and mention-all readings. Under one view questions are ambiguous, with different contexts making different readings salient; under another view they only have mention-all readings but partial answers may count as complete answers in certain contexts. The possibility of three classes of predicates, those that select for strong exhaustiveness, those that select for both strong and weak exhaustiveness, and those that select only for weak/non-exhaustiveness is considered as evidence for these distinctions. Negative polarity items are also considered a diagnostic for the grammatical status of the divide between strong, weak, and non-exhaustiveness.Less
This chapter considers three types of answers: weakly exhaustive, strongly exhaustive, and non-exhaustive/mention-some answers. Two lines of approach are discussed, one that locates the variation between strong and weak exhaustiveness in answerhood operators, another where variation is due to the optional presence of exhaustification operators in the question nucleus. The second issue addressed is the ambiguity between mention-some and mention-all readings. Under one view questions are ambiguous, with different contexts making different readings salient; under another view they only have mention-all readings but partial answers may count as complete answers in certain contexts. The possibility of three classes of predicates, those that select for strong exhaustiveness, those that select for both strong and weak exhaustiveness, and those that select only for weak/non-exhaustiveness is considered as evidence for these distinctions. Negative polarity items are also considered a diagnostic for the grammatical status of the divide between strong, weak, and non-exhaustiveness.
Veneeta Dayal
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199281268
- eISBN:
- 9780191757396
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199281268.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
The study of questions is one of the major success stories in modern semantics. This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with ...
More
The study of questions is one of the major success stories in modern semantics. This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax. The topics covered are extensive and varied: direct–indirect questions, weak–strong exhaustiveness, maximality, mention-some answers, functional answers, single-multiple-trapped list answers, higher order questions, embedding predicates, selection, quantificational variability, concealed questions, weak islands, pied piping, focus, intervention, polar and alternative questions, bias, negative polarity, non-canonical questions. The literature on this rich set of topics, theoretically diverse and scattered across multiple venues, is often hard to assimilate. The author, drawing on her own research, brings them together for the first time in a coherent, concise, and well-structured whole. Readers will find in this book a lucid exposition of the classics as well as discussion of the most recent, cutting edge research on questions. Each chapter begins with a non-technical introduction to the issues. Semantically sophisticated accounts are presented incrementally and major points summarized at the end of each section. Individual accounts of phenomena are placed in the relevant context. Issues that remain open are highlighted and promising lines of further inquiry sketched out. It constitutes at the same time a comprehensible guide to one of the most vibrant areas of research in natural language semantics and a compass for how this area of study is developing.Less
The study of questions is one of the major success stories in modern semantics. This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax. The topics covered are extensive and varied: direct–indirect questions, weak–strong exhaustiveness, maximality, mention-some answers, functional answers, single-multiple-trapped list answers, higher order questions, embedding predicates, selection, quantificational variability, concealed questions, weak islands, pied piping, focus, intervention, polar and alternative questions, bias, negative polarity, non-canonical questions. The literature on this rich set of topics, theoretically diverse and scattered across multiple venues, is often hard to assimilate. The author, drawing on her own research, brings them together for the first time in a coherent, concise, and well-structured whole. Readers will find in this book a lucid exposition of the classics as well as discussion of the most recent, cutting edge research on questions. Each chapter begins with a non-technical introduction to the issues. Semantically sophisticated accounts are presented incrementally and major points summarized at the end of each section. Individual accounts of phenomena are placed in the relevant context. Issues that remain open are highlighted and promising lines of further inquiry sketched out. It constitutes at the same time a comprehensible guide to one of the most vibrant areas of research in natural language semantics and a compass for how this area of study is developing.
