Abstract
In this paper I argue that when question tags such as huh? in (North American) English, eh? in Italian and mi? in Hungarian follow a declarative anchor, they are subject to special contextual constraints. They convey that the speaker perceives the addressee to be a source for p, the proposition conveyed by the anchor, and in addition, the presupposition that the speaker herself is a source for the addressee being a source for p.
Highlights
Tag questions express speaker bias and elicit confirmation or acknowledgment from the addressee (Ladd 1981; Asher & Reese 2007; Farkas & Bruce 2010; Malamud & Stephenson 2015; Farkas & Roelofsen 2017)
In English, a speaker who chooses to pronounce a tag question like (1-a) with a falling intonation on the tag, expresses commitment to the proposition conveyed by the anchor, that ‘2020 was a tough year’ and may use the reverse polarity tag wasn’t it? to elicit participation from the addressee
I claim that the invariable tags huh?, eh? and mi?, uttered with a rising intonation, convey that i) the speaker takes the addressee to believe that the proposition conveyed by the anchor is true, and this belief of the addressee is independent of anyone else’s commitment; ii) and that the speaker believes, independently of anyone else’s commitment, that this is the case
Summary
Tag questions express speaker bias and elicit confirmation or acknowledgment from the addressee (Ladd 1981; Asher & Reese 2007; Farkas & Bruce 2010; Malamud & Stephenson 2015; Farkas & Roelofsen 2017). In a context like (14), in which the speaker perceives the addressee to be independently committed to p = ‘the ice-cream is tasty’, source tags are felicitous. There is no clear boundary between being dependently and independently committed to a proposition: nothing prevents the speaker from internalizing the belief that A likes ice-cream X between two conversational turns; A could have become a source for q = ‘B is a source for p (where p = ‘ice-cream X is tasty’) right before uttering (18-a)–(18-b) There is another way to reveal what kind of meaning this speaker commitment could be, namely by looking at what happens to the speaker’s commitment to q if the addressee accepts (as opposed to rejecting) the utterance with the source tag. (ii) cg*: projected common ground, the step in the development of the common ground, depending on the acceptance of a current proposal
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
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 call
