Abstract
This paper presents a novel account of the syntax and semantics of questions, making use of the framework for linguistic description developed by Richard Montague (1974). Certain features of the proposal are based on work by N. Belnap (1963), L. Åqvist (1965), C. L. Baker (1968, 1970), S. Kuno and J. Robinson (1972), C. L. Hamblin (1973), E. Keenan and R. Hull (1973), J. Hintikka (1974), Lewis (1975), and D. Wunderlich (1975), but it differs from all of its predecessors in one way or another. I will start with a number of observations which provide the basis for the treatment of questions presented in the second part of the paper and conclude with a summary and a brief discussion of how the proposed description compares with recent transformational analyses.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Åqvist, Lennart: 1965, A New Approach to the Logical Theory of Interrogatives, Filosofiska Föreningen. Uppsala, Sweden.
Bach, Emmon: 1971, ‘Questions’, Linguistic Inquiry 2, 153–166.
Baker, Carl L.: 1968, Indirect Questions in English, Ph.D. dissertation. University of Illinois. Urbana, III.
Baker, Carl L.: 1970, ‘Notes on the Description of English Questions: The Role of an Abstract Question Morpheme’, Foundations of Language 6, 197–217.
Belnap, Nuel: 1963, An Analysis of Questions, Technical Memorandum TM 1287/00/000. System Development Corporation. Santa Monica, Cal..
Chomsky, Noam: 1973, ‘Conditions on Transformations’, in Stephen R. Anderson and Paul Kiparsky, eds. A Festschrift for Morris Halle. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. New York, N.Y.
Chomsky, Noam: 1975, Reflections on Language, Pantheon. New York, N.Y.
Cooper, Robin: 1975, Montague’s Semantic Theory and Transformational Syntax, Ph.D. dissertation. University of Massachusetts. Amherst, Mass.
Cresswell, Max J.: 1973, Logics and Languages, Methuen & Co. London, England.
Erteschik, Nomi: 1973, On the Nature of Island Constraints, Ph.D. dissertation. M. I. T. Cambridge, Mass.
Grice, H. P.: 1975, ‘Logic and Conversation’, in Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman, eds. The Logic of Grammar. Dickenson. Encino, Cal.
Hamblin, C. L.: 1973, ‘Questions in Montague English’, Foundations of Language 10, 41–53.
Hankamer, Jorge: 1974, ‘On WH-Indexing’, NELS V: Papers from the Fifth Meeting of the Northeastern Linguistic Society. Department of Linguistics, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass.
Hintikka, Jaakko: 1974, ‘Questions about Questions’, in Milton K. Munitz and Peter Unger, eds. Semantics and Philosophy, NY University Press. New York, N.Y.
Hintikka, Jaakko (forthcoming) The Semantics of Questions and the Questions of Semantics. Case Studies of the Interrelations of Logic, Syntax, and Semantics.
Hull, Robert David: 1974, A Logical Analysis of Questions and Answers, Ph.D. dissertation. Cambridge, England.
Jespersen, Otto: 1924, The Philosophy of Grammar. Allen & Unwin. London, England.
Karttunen, Lauri and Stanley Peters: 1975, “Conventional Implicature in Montague Grammar”,In BLS 1: Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, Calif.
Karttunen, Lauri and Stanley Peters: 1976, ‘What Indirect Questions Conventionally Implicate’, CLS 12: Papers from the Twelfth Regional Meeting. Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago, III.
Katz, Jerrold J. and Paul M. Postal: 1964, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions, MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.
Keenan, Edward and Robert D. Hull: 1973, ‘The Logical Presuppositions of Questions and Answers’, in J. S. Petöfi and D. Franck, eds, Präsuppositionen in Philosophie und Linguistik. Athenäum. Frankfurt/M., Germany.
Kuno, Susumu: 1973 The Structure of the Japanese Language MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Kuno, Susumu and Jane Robinson: 1972, ‘Multiple WH-Questions’, Linguistic Inquiry 3, 463–487.
Lakoff, George: 1970, ‘Repartee’, Foundations of Language 7, 389–422.
Langacker, Ronald: 1974, ‘The Question of Q’ Foundations of Language 11, 1–37.
Lewis, David: 1972, ‘General Semantics’, in Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman, eds. Semantics of Natural Language, D. Reidel. Dordrecht, Holland.
Lewis, David and Stephanie: 1975, ‘Review of R. Olson and A. Paul, eds. Contemporary Philosophy in Scandinavia’, Theoria 61, 39–60.
Montague, Richard: 1974, ‘The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English’, in R. Thomason, ed. Formal Philosophy, Selected Papers of Richard Montague. Yale University Press. New Haven, Conn.
Postal, Paul: 1974, ‘On Certain Ambiguities’, Linguistic Inquiry 4, 367–424.
Rodman, Robert: 1975, ‘The Non-discrete Nature of Islands’, Indiana University Linguistics Club Papers. Bloomington, Ind.
Rodman, Robert: 1976, “Scope Phenomena, Movement Transformations and Relative Clausesℍ, in Barbara Partee, ed. Montague Grammar, Academic Press. New York, N. Y.
Ross, John Robert: 1967, Constraints on Variables in Syntax, Ph.D. dissertation. M. I. T. Cambridge, Mass.
Thomason, Richmond H.: 1976, ‘Some Extensions of Montague Grammar’, in Barbara Partee, ed. Montague Grammar, Academic Press. New York, N.Y.
Wachowicz, Krystyna: 1974, ‘Multiple Questions’, Linguistica Silesiana 1. Wunderlich, Dieter: 1975, ‘Fragesätze und Fragen’ (preliminary version). Unpublished paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1977 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Karttunen, L. (1977). Syntax and Semantics of Questions. In: Hiż, H. (eds) Questions. Synthese Language Library, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9509-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9509-3_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1035-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9509-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive