scholarly journals Decomposing universal projection in questions

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 361-374
Author(s):  
Bernhard Schwarz ◽  
Alexandra Simonenko
Keyword(s):  
Presupposition Projection ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Bridge Principles

Revising a proposal by Guerzoni (2003), we propose to derive universal projectionof presuppositions in wh-questions, where attested, from a family of three felicity conditions onquestion use. Assuming that these felicity conditions can be violated under certain conditions,this proposal predicts a typology of contexts where universal projection can exceptionally beunattested. We propose that this prediction is correct, presenting a family of scenarios wherethe expected absence of universal projection is observed.Keywords: wh-questions, universal presupposition projection, felicity conditions, bridge principles.

scholarly journals An Epistemic Bridge for Presupposition Projection in Questions

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 252
Author(s):  
Nadine Theiler
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Presupposition Projection ◽  
Bridge Principle ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
True Answer

It is often assumed that presuppositions in wh-questions project universally. However, Schwarz & Simonenko (2018) note examples of such questions where universal projection is absent. I discuss their account and propose an alternative: by reasoning about the pragmatics of question-answer discourse, I arrive at a version of Stalnaker's bridge principle that is sensitive to what the speaker already knows about the true answer to the question. This Epistemic Bridge predicts universal projection for canonical information-seeking questions, but less than universal projection for certain non-canonical question uses such as quiz questions.

Responses of Language-Disordered Children to Wh-Questions

1986 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha M. Parnell ◽  
James D. Amerman ◽  
Roger D. Harting
Keyword(s):  
Relative Difficulty ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Wh Questions

Nineteen language-disordered children aged 3—7 years responded to items representing nine wh-question forms. Questions referred to three types of referential sources based on immediacy and visual availability. Three and 4-year-olds produced significantly fewer functionally appropriate and functionally accurate answers than did the 5- and 6-year-olds. Generally, questions asked with reference to nonobservable persons, actions, or objects appeared the most difficult. Why, when, and what happened questions were the most difficult of the nine wh-forms. In comparison with previous data from normal children, the language-disordered subjects' responses were significantly less appropriate and accurate. The language-disordered children also appeared particularly vulnerable to the increased cognitive/linguistic demands of questioning directed toward nonimmediate referents. A hierarchy of wh-question forms by relative difficulty was very similar to that observed for normal children. Implications for wh-question assessment and intervention are discussed.

Presupposition Projection of Conditionals

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Seong Eun Park
Keyword(s):  
Presupposition Projection

Should we regard question-based media headlines as clickbait?

English Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Brian Poole
Keyword(s):  
Question Mark ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Wh Questions

In an article published a little over a decade ago (Betteridge, 2009), the journalist Ian Betteridge offered some scathing comments about a piece published a few days earlier in TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld (Schonfeld, 2009). Amongst other things, Betteridge suggested that the headline concerned (‘Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data to the RIAA?’) was ‘a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no”.’ Readers of English Today will realise immediately that this ‘maxim’ cannot possibly be watertight as expressed by Betteridge, since only polar questions can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. For example, WH-questions (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973: 196) such as ‘Who opened my letter?’ and ‘How long have you been waiting?’ obviously cannot be responded to in any sensible way with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Furthermore, it is not difficult to find media headlines taking the form of non-polar questions: for example, “What would a no-deal Brexit mean for business?” (O'Dwyer et.al., 2020).

scholarly journals Coconuts and curtain cakes: The production of wh-questions in ASD

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 239694152098295
Author(s):  
Nufar Sukenik ◽  
Eléonore Morin ◽  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Philippe Prevost ◽  
Laurice Tuller
Keyword(s):  
Error Analysis ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Production Rates ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Analysis Of Error ◽  
Error Types

Background and aims Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been found to exhibit difficulties in wh-question production. It is unclear whether these difficulties are pragmatic or syntactic in nature. The current study used a question elicitation task to assess the production of subject and object wh-questions of children with ASD in two different languages (Hebrew and French) wherein the syntactic structure of wh-questions is different, a fact that may contribute to better understanding of the underlying deficits affecting wh-question production. Crucially, beyond the general correct/error rate we also performed an in-depth analysis of error types, comparing syntactic to pragmatic errors and comparing the distribution of errors in the ASD group to that of children with typical development (TD) and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Results Correct production rates were found to be similar for the ASD and DLD groups, but error analysis revealed important differences between the ASD groups in the two languages and the DLD group. The Hebrew- and French ASD groups were found to produce pragmatic errors, which were not found in children with DLD. The pragmatic errors were similar in the two ASD groups. Syntactic errors were affected by the structure of each language. Conclusions Our results have shown that although the two ASD groups come from different countries and speak different languages, the correct production rates and more importantly, the error types were very similar in the two ASD groups, and very different compared to TD children and children with DLD. Implications: Our results highlight the importance of creating research tasks that test different linguistic functions independently and strengthen the need for conducting fine-grained error analysis to differentiate between groups and gain insights into the deficits underlying each of them.

Focus Attracts Attachment

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092110333
Author(s):  
Katy Carlson ◽  
David Potter
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Auditory Comprehension ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Sentence Interpretation ◽  
Pitch Accents

There is growing evidence that pitch accents as well as prosodic boundaries can affect syntactic attachment. But is this an effect of their perceptual salience (the Salience Hypothesis), or is it because accents mark the position of focus (the Focus Attraction Hypothesis)? A pair of auditory comprehension experiments shows that focus position, as indicated by preceding wh-questions instead of by pitch accents, affects attachment by drawing the ambiguous phrase to the focus. This supports the Focus Attraction Hypothesis (or a pragmatic version of salience) for both these results and previous results of accents on attachment. These experiments show that information structure, as indicated with prosody or other means, influences sentence interpretation, and suggests a view on which modifiers are drawn to the most important information in a sentence.

scholarly journals Strategies of wh-coordination

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anikó Lipták
Keyword(s):  
Wh Questions ◽  
Surface Patterns ◽  
The Cross

This paper presents an overview of the cross-linguistically available strategies used in the formation of questions with coordinated wh-expressions. It offers a systematic characterization of the existing surface patterns of wh-coordination and the syntactic strategies underlying these, and presents typological generalizations on the distribution of these strategies, based on a cross-linguistic survey involving 12 languages. It will be pointed out that languages can be classified into four types according to the availability of coordinated wh-questions in them and that these four types can make use of at least six distinct syntactic strategies for the derivation of wh-coordination. The availability of these strategies will be shown to be limited by the syntactic typology of wh-questions. Keywords: wh-questions; coordination; ellipsis; sharing; (multiple) wh-movement

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