Expectation Biases and Context Management with Negative Polar Questions.
This paper examines distinctive discourse properties of preposed negative yes/no questions (NPQs), such as Isn't Jane coming too?. Unlike with other yes/no questions, using an NPQ ∼ p? invariably conveys a bias toward a particular answer, where the polarity of the bias is opposite of the polarity of...
| Published in: | Journal of Philosophical Logic Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 51 - 93 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Feb2020
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=141413987&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 141413987 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00223611 JPH jtl: Journal of Philosophical Logic issn: 00223611 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2020 vid: 49 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 141413987 10.1007/s10992-019-09512-0 ppf: 51 ppct: 42 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 778KB tig: atl: Expectation Biases and Context Management with Negative Polar Questions. aug: au: Silk, Alex affil: Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham, ERI Building, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK su: Expectation (Philosophy) General semantics Negation (Logic) Questioning sug: subj: Expectation (Philosophy) General semantics Negation (Logic) Questioning keyword: Biased questions Context-managing operators Context-sensitivity Epistemic modals Expressives Negative polar questions Questions Subjective use ab: This paper examines distinctive discourse properties of preposed negative yes/no questions (NPQs), such as Isn't Jane coming too?. Unlike with other yes/no questions, using an NPQ ∼ p? invariably conveys a bias toward a particular answer, where the polarity of the bias is opposite of the polarity of the question: using the negative question ∼ p? invariably expresses that the speaker previously expected the positive answer p to be correct. A prominent approach— what I call the context-management approach, developed most extensively by Romero and Han (Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 609-658 2004)— attempts to capture speaker expectation biases by treating NPQs fundamentally as epistemic questions about the proper discourse status of a proposition. I raise challenges for existing context-managing accounts to provide more adequate formalizations of the posited context-managing content, its implementation in the compositional semantics and discourse dynamics, and its role in generating the observed biases. New data regarding discourse differences between NPQs and associated epistemic modal questions are introduced. I argue that we can capture the roles of NPQs in expressing speakers' states of mind and managing the discourse common ground without positing special context-managing operators or treating NPQs as questions directly about the context. I suggest that we treat the operator introduced with preposed negation as having an ordinary semantics of epistemic necessity, though lexically associated with a general kind of endorsing use observed with modal expressions. The expressive and context-managing roles of NPQs are explained in terms of a general kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. The distinctive expectation biases and discourse properties observed with NPQs are derived from the proposed semantics and a general principle of Discourse Relevance. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Journal of Philosophical Logic is a copyright of Springer, 2020. All Rights Reserved. item: Journal of Philosophical Logic holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2020 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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