Prosody in Disjunctive Questions: Introducing Class

This paper discusses the semantics and pragmatics of Class Questions: disjunctive questions with a continuation rise on each disjunct. Class Questions cannot be analysed as Alternative Questions or Polar Questions because they pattern in between those two in terms of their syntactic restrictions and pragmatic effects. I provide an overview of the data building on which I argue that Class Questions require a specific analysis and show how this novel data challenges existing accounts of disjunctive questions

Indefinites in Comparatives

The goal of this paper is to explain the meaning and distribution of indefinites in comparatives, focusing on the case of English some and any and German irgend-indefinites. We combine three competing theories of comparatives with an alternative semantics of some and any, and a novel account of stressed irgend-indefinites. One of the resulting theories, based on Heim’s (2006) analysis of comparatives, predicts all the relevant differences in quantificational force, and explains why free choice indefinites are licensed in comparatives

Ignorance and competence implicatures in central Sicilian polar questions

In this paper we examine the distribution and functions of two optional particles found in polar questions in the central Sicilian dialect of Mussomeli (Caltanissetta): chi and cusà. The import of these particles can best be understood by analysing their distribution in various types of ‘non-canonical’ questions, based on the typology outlined in Farkas (2020). In Farkas’s account, canonical questions are characterized by the default assumptions of speaker ignorance and addressee competence regarding the question’s propositional content, while at least one of these is missing in non-canonical questions. This characterization of (non)-canonical questions in terms of speaker ignorance and addressee competence allows us to capture the distribution of the two particles, which strengthen these assumptions to conventional implicatures. In particular, we show that chi is conventionally associated with addressee competence, while cusà is conventionally associated with speaker ignorance. We frame this analysis in a version of the inquisitive semantics model, according to which sentence types are characterized by two parameters: the informativeness of the propositional content relative to the participants’ information state, and its inquisitiveness, that is, its potential to raise an issue. This perspective allows us to develop an explicit analysis of the meaning of the particles, which can in turn be successfully extended to capture their uses beyond polar questions

Ignorance and competence implicatures in central Sicilian polar questions

Peer reviewe

Toward a unified semantics for English "either"

This paper proposes that the additive and disjunctive uses of English either share a semantic core. Formulated in Inquisitive Semantics, this core involves a requirement that either apply to an inquisitive proposition, which accounts for either’s co-occurrence with disjunction. It also includes an additive presupposition that is more flexible than has previously been assumed in the literature, which allows the analysis to account for novel data in which additive either conveys that a proposition is unexpected or undesirable. The inability of either to appear in alternative questions is also pointed out and accounted for

Coordinating questions: The scope puzzle

This paper introduces a new puzzle concerning the interaction between questions on the one hand, and conjunction and disjunction on the other. It shows that a conjunction of two polar interrogative clauses is interpreted so that each conjunct involves a polar question operator and the conjunction takes scope over these, whereas a disjunction of two polar interrogative clauses can only be interpreted as involving a single polar question operator scoping over the disjunction. In other words, two full-fledged polar questions each including their own question operator can be conjoined, but cannot be disjoined. We argue that the source of this contrast is semantic (rather than syntactic, pragmatic, or other), and we formulate two general constraints on question meanings which can each account for it. The first, based on Fox (2018), requires that the resolutions of a question are related in a particular way to the cells of the partition that the question induces on the context set. The second requires that the exhaustive interpretation of a consistent resolution of the question is never inconsistent. We leave open which of these two constraints is to be preferred

Indefinites in Comparatives

The goal of this paper is to explain the meaning and distribution of indefinites in comparatives, focusing on the case of English 'some' and 'any' and German 'irgend'-indefinites. We combine three competing theories of comparatives with an alternative semantics of 'some' and 'any', and a novel account of stressed 'irgend'-indefinites. One of the resulting theories, based on Heim's (2006) analysis of comparatives, predicts all the relevant differences in quantificational force, and explains why free choice indefinites are licensed in comparatives