Full Description
The volume Questions in Discourse - Vol. 2 Pragmatics collects original research on the role of questions in understanding text structure and discourse pragmatics. The in-depth studies discuss the effects of focus, questions and givenness in unalternative semantics, as well as the role of scalar particles, question-answer pairs and prosody from the perspective of Questions under Discussion. Two contributions compare the discourse-structuring potential of Questions under Discussion and rhetorical relations, whereas another adds a perspective from inquisitive semantics. Some contributions also look at understudied languages. Together, the contributions allow for a better understanding of question-related pragmatic and discourse-semantic phenomena, and they offer new perspectives on the structure of texts and discourses.
Contents
1 Introduction
Malte Zimmermann, Klaus von Heusinger and Edgar Onea
2 Focus, Questions and Givenness
Daniel Büring
3 The Scalar Particle har'i in Ngamo (West Chadic)
Mira Grubic
4 Question-Answer Pairs in Sign Languages
Annika Herrmann, Sina Proske and Elisabeth Volk
5 Inferring Meaning from Indirect Answers to Polar Questions: the Contribution of the Rise-Fall-Rise Contour
Marie-Catherine de Marneffe and Judith Tonhauser
6 Constructing QUD Trees
Arndt Riester
7 Underneath Rhetorical Relations: the Case of Result
Edgar Onea
8 Two Alternatives for Disjunction: an Inquisitive Reconciliation
Floris Roelofsen
Index
