Abstract
Or not alternative questions like Are you coming or not? give rise to so-called ‘cornering effects’ (Biezma 2009), consisting of two parts: (i) they cannot appear discourse-initially, and (ii) they do not allow for follow-up questions. Building on recent experimental data (Beltrama, Meertens & Romero 2020), the present paper raises problems for current analyses (Biezma 2009, Biezma & Rawlins 2012, 2018), reframes the second part of cornering as not specific to NAQs but as a general constraint on questions in general, and develops a novel proposal for the first part of cornering. The key ingredients of the new proposal are the intrinsic focus structure of or not questions and its effects on discourse trees.
Highlights
Consider the polar question (PQ) in (1) and the or not alternative question (Negative Alternative Question, Negative AltQ (NAQ)) in (2)
To test Part 1 of Cornering, they compare the naturalness of these three questioning strategies in discourse initial position, asking participants to provide a judgment on a 7 point scale (1 = completely unnatural; 7 = perfectly natural; see Beltrama et al 2020, Section 4 for details on the materials, procedure and analysis)
Contrary to NAQs, Complement Alternative Questions (CAQs) were as felicitous as PQs discourse-initially, and significantly more felicitous than NAQs
Summary
Consider the polar question (PQ) in (1) and the or not alternative question (Negative Alternative Question, NAQ) in (2). Beltrama, Meertens & Romero (2020) experimentally tested PQs, NAQs and CAQs and found that each question type displays a different pattern in terms of Cornering Effects, raising issues for both existing approaches A and B. To test Part 1 of Cornering, they compare the naturalness of these three questioning strategies in discourse initial position, asking participants to provide a judgment on a 7 point scale (1 = completely unnatural; 7 = perfectly natural; see Beltrama et al 2020, Section 4 for details on the materials, procedure and analysis) Two aspects of their findings are especially relevant to our purposes (see Beltrama et al 2020: for a more exhaustive discussion). This contradicts the prediction (13b) of approach B, which expects difference tolerance for follow-ups between NAQs –due to bundling– and CAQs – since they involve no bundling
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
