Why we should ever bother about wh-questions: On NPI-licensing properties of wh-questions in Swedish
(2008) In Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 81. p.83-121- Abstract
- This paper is an attempt to solve the somewhat elusive polarity item licensing properties of wh-questions in Swedish. As has been observed by Klima (1964) for English, NPIs are gener¬ally not compatible with genuinely information seeking wh-questions, but tend to induce rhe¬torical interpretations. Distin-guishing between three types of wh-questions and the kind of information they request, I will systematically review the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of each wh-type. Based on that overview, I argue that NPI-licensing in wh-ques¬tions is dependent on the relation between the implication of exis-tence associated with the wh-word and the presupposition induced by the expressed proposition. According to my analysis, wh-words... (More)
- This paper is an attempt to solve the somewhat elusive polarity item licensing properties of wh-questions in Swedish. As has been observed by Klima (1964) for English, NPIs are gener¬ally not compatible with genuinely information seeking wh-questions, but tend to induce rhe¬torical interpretations. Distin-guishing between three types of wh-questions and the kind of information they request, I will systematically review the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of each wh-type. Based on that overview, I argue that NPI-licensing in wh-ques¬tions is dependent on the relation between the implication of exis-tence associated with the wh-word and the presupposition induced by the expressed proposition. According to my analysis, wh-words should not be regarded as NPI-licensing operators. Being place-holders, wh-words inherit whatever properties are associated with the item they replace. The licensing property of the wh-word is thus dependent on the licensing property of the referent. Thus, only wh-words referring to downward entailing expressions will license NPIs in their scope (e.g. when pointing to an empty set). Such wh-questions tend to be interpreted rhetorically. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1296041
- author
- Brandtler, Johan LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2008
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- polarity, wh-questions, negation, presupposition, implicature
- in
- Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax
- volume
- 81
- pages
- 83 - 121
- publisher
- Scandinavian language department, Lund university
- ISSN
- 1100-097X
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Swedish (015011001)
- id
- b0a08ba2-8499-4236-ae9f-30c9e4bfe568 (old id 1296041)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 15:03:16
- date last changed
- 2018-11-21 20:32:44
@article{b0a08ba2-8499-4236-ae9f-30c9e4bfe568, abstract = {{This paper is an attempt to solve the somewhat elusive polarity item licensing properties of wh-questions in Swedish. As has been observed by Klima (1964) for English, NPIs are gener¬ally not compatible with genuinely information seeking wh-questions, but tend to induce rhe¬torical interpretations. Distin-guishing between three types of wh-questions and the kind of information they request, I will systematically review the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of each wh-type. Based on that overview, I argue that NPI-licensing in wh-ques¬tions is dependent on the relation between the implication of exis-tence associated with the wh-word and the presupposition induced by the expressed proposition. According to my analysis, wh-words should not be regarded as NPI-licensing operators. Being place-holders, wh-words inherit whatever properties are associated with the item they replace. The licensing property of the wh-word is thus dependent on the licensing property of the referent. Thus, only wh-words referring to downward entailing expressions will license NPIs in their scope (e.g. when pointing to an empty set). Such wh-questions tend to be interpreted rhetorically.}}, author = {{Brandtler, Johan}}, issn = {{1100-097X}}, keywords = {{polarity; wh-questions; negation; presupposition; implicature}}, language = {{eng}}, pages = {{83--121}}, publisher = {{Scandinavian language department, Lund university}}, series = {{Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax}}, title = {{Why we should ever bother about wh-questions: On NPI-licensing properties of wh-questions in Swedish}}, url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/4313162/1296043.pdf}}, volume = {{81}}, year = {{2008}}, }