Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

Edgar Onea

ISBN 10: 9004204784 / ISBN 13: 9789004204782

Published by Brill, NL, 2016

About this Item

In Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface Edgar Onea proposes a novel component for question under discussion based discourse pragmatic theories thereby combining such theories with new ideas from inquisitive semantics. He shows how potential questions account for an entire range of grammatical phenomena. These phenomena include the semantics of indefinite determiners, the meaning contribution of nominal appositives, specificational constructions and non restrictive relative clauses. This book delivers a comprehensive and empirically rich investigation into the role of questions in natural language interpretation. Drawing on data from German, English, Hungarian and Russian, Edgar Onea's study significantly broadens our understanding of conventional sensitivity to questions through formally rigorous analyses of specificational particles, parentheticals and indefinites. The Potential Questions framework offers a new and exciting perspective on utterance meanings as not just addressing, but also raising questions, with important consequences for integrated analyses of discourse structure and discourse relations. This book is essential reading for anybody interested in the semantics-pragmatics interface.Judith Tonhauser, The Ohio State University.

Seller Inventory # LU-9789004204782

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface
• Publisher: Brill, NL
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004204784
• ISBN 13: 9789004204782
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.5W x 2.7H x 23.5D centimeters 15.5 centimeters width by 2.7 centimeters height by 23.5 centimeters depth
• Weight: 749 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface Edgar Onea proposes a novel component for question under discussion based discourse pragmatic theories thereby combining such theories with new ideas from inquisitive semantics. He shows how potential questions account for an entire range of grammatical phenomena. These phenomena include the semantics of indefinite determiners, the meaning contribution of nominal appositives, specificational constructions and non restrictive relative clauses.


This book delivers a comprehensive and empirically rich investigation into the role of questions in natural language interpretation. Drawing on data from German, English, Hungarian and Russian, Edgar Onea's study significantly broadens our understanding of conventional sensitivity to questions through formally rigorous analyses of specificational particles, parentheticals and indefinites. The Potential Questions framework offers a new and exciting perspective on utterance meanings as not just addressing, but also raising questions, with important consequences for integrated analyses of discourse structure and discourse relations. This book is essential reading for anybody interested in the semantics-pragmatics interface.

Judith Tonhauser, The Ohio State University

About the Author

Edgar Onea, Dr Phil (1980), University of Göttingen, is a Junior Professor for Theoretical Linguistics at the Courant Research Centre “Text Structures”. He has published a wide range of articles on the semantics-pragmatics interface and formal pragmatics.