Colloquium with Kyle Rawlins, Johns Hopkins University

Title:  Non-canonical questions and negation

Abstract:  The standard view of question acts is that they are requests for information. At the same time, there are many, many interrogative-marked utterances known to not be used in this way, often dubbed as having the function of “non-canonical” questions. In ongoing work I have been developing a view of questioning where question acts are openings to coordinate on the resolution of an issue (generalizing Question Under Discussion theories). This approach, I argue, largely dispels the canonical/non-canonical distinction and accounts for a wide range of interrogative-marked moves and their responses. In this talk I examine the coordination view specifically through the lens of negative questions, which famously mix a request for information with “bias” inferences that convey information. Compare the biased (1) with the more neutral positive polar question in (2):

(1) Are you not afraid of your competitors? (context: NPR interview with Elon Musk)

Implies: Speaker has reason to expect that hearer is not afraid of their competitors.

(2) Are you afraid of your competitors?

Implies (at most): Hearer might be afraid of their competitors.

Because coordination is a cooperative and essentially symmetric activity, biased questions serve an expected function: they amount to beginning coordination with any contribution the asker themself has beyond just the issue to be resolved. At the same time, negation *is* marked. For negative questions like (1), I give an account where coordination on an issue as implemented in a Bayesian framework, combined with the markedness of negation, leads to bias inferences. I show further how this generalizes to other biased questions with more conventionalized bias indicators (as has been argued for preposed/contracted negative question forms in English, as well as a range of markers and particles cross-linguistically). Overall, biased questions may have marked form, but are as canonical as a question can be on the coordination view.