Questions

Description

This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax. It will be a unique resource for the novice and expert alike, and seeks to appeal to a variety of readers without compromising depth and breadth of coverage.

• Each chapter provides a non-technical introduction and a conclusion summarizing key points
• Includes coverage of topics that are currently under debate, with pointers on possible future lines of research
• Written in an accessible style, to appeal to a wide range of readers

About the Author(s)

Veneeta Dayal, Professor of Linguistics, Rutgers University

Veneeta Dayal is Professor of Linguistics at Rutgers University, where she has taught semantics since 1990. She principally studies the semantics of natural language and its interface with syntax, typically from a cross-linguistic perspective, with particular focus on wh-constructions, bare nominals, (in)definiteness, genericity, word order, and free choice items. Her work has appeared in Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and Natural Language Semantics, and she is the author of Locality in Wh Quantification (Kluwer, 1996).

Table of Contents

General preface
Acknowledgments
1:Introducing questions and answers
2:A theory of questions and answers
3:Exhaustive and non-exhaustive answers
4:Single-pair, pair-list, and functional answers
5:Embedded questions
6:Weak islands and extraction
7:Wh inside islands
8:Focus and alternatives
9:Non-canonical questions
Afterword
References
Index