Questions and Answers in Embedded Contexts

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).

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.

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 Semidistributivity

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

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Questions and Answers in Embedded Contexts

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials