Questions and Answers in Embedded Contexts

by Lahiri, Utpal

• ISBN13: 9780199246526
• ISBN10: 0199246521
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-03-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Linguists have realized for some time that predicates of the 'know' and 'wonder' classes behave differently in semantic terms with respect to their interrogative complements, but have not so far fully understood how or why. This book seeks to explore and to provide solutions to this and to related problems in explaining the meaning and grammar of embedded interrogatives and the predicates that take interrogative complements (indirect questions and how they are answered).

Author Biography

Utpal Lahiri is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of California, Irvine. Having obtained his doctorate from MIT in 1991, he was Visiting Lecturer at the University of Connecticut (1992), and Lecturer at MIT (1991-2) before taking up his present position.

Table of Contents

General Preface	vii
Acknowledgements	viii
List of Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	1	(3)
A Brief Survey of Some Issues in the Semantics of Questions	4	(58)
Introduction	4	(1)
Questions and Answers	5	(18)
Embedded Interrogatives as Open Sentences	23	(32)
Interrogatives and Context	55	(6)
Summary	61	(1)
Quantificational Variability I: Adverbial Modification of Embedded Interrogatives	62	(122)
Introduction	62	(1)
Quantificational Variability (QVE) in Embedded Interrogatives	63	(56)
Pair-list Questions/Families of Questions/Higher-Order Questions	119	(12)
Focus-Affected Readings and QVE	131	(5)
Embedded Interrogatives Whose Answer Sets Are Not PCAs	136	(12)
Strong, Weak, and Weaker Exhaustiveness	148	(15)
Groenendijk and Stokhof (1992; 1994): A Comparison	163	(6)
Summary	169	(15)
Appendix 1	170	(3)
Appendix 2	173	(3)
Appendix 3	176	(5)
Appendix 4	181	(3)
Embedded Interrogatives and Plurality	184	(37)
Introduction	184	(1)
Semidistributive Readings of Embedded Interrogatives	185	(6)
Why Semidistributive Readings are Interesting	191	(4)
Schwarzschild (1996) and Semidistributive	195	(3)
Questions and Answers Revisited	198	(5)
Semidistributive Readings of (Plural) Embedded Interrogatives and Declaratives	203	(12)
Some Problems and Open Questions About Plural Embedded Interrogatives and Quantificational Variability: Glimpses Beyond	215	(5)
Summary and Conclusions	220	(1)
Quantificational Variability II: Adverbial Modification of Interrogative-Embedding Predicates	221	(22)
Introduction	221	(1)
Adverbial Modification of Interrogative-Embedding Predicates	222	(8)
Adverbial Modification of Interrogative-Embedding Predicates vs. Adverbial Modification of Embedded Interrogatives	230	(12)
Summary	242	(1)
The Syntax of Embedded Interrogatives and the Lexical Semantics of Interrogative-Embedding Predicates	243	(50)
Introduction	243	(1)
Selection of Interrogative Complements	244	(15)
Factivity and the Ability to Take Interrogative Complements	259	(4)
Spanish Interrogatives and Complement Selection	263	(21)
Embedded Interrogatives and Verb Classes	284	(7)
Conclusions	291	(2)
References	293	(10)
Index	303