Inquisitive Semantics and Pragmatics
Jeroen Groenendijk & Floris Roelofsen
ABSTRACT
This paper starts with an informal introduction to
inquisitive semantics. After that, we present a formal delnition of
the semantics, introduce the semantic notions of inquisitiveness and
informativeness, and define the semantic categories of questions,
assertions, and hybrid sentences.
The focus of the paper will be on the logical pragmatical
notions that the semantics gives rise to. We introduce and motivate
inquisitive versions of principles of cooperation, which direct a
conversation towards enhancement of the common ground. We delne a
notion of compliance, which judges relatedness of one utterance to
another, and a notion of homogeneity, which enables quantitative
comparison of compliant moves. We end the paper with an illustration
of the cooperative way in which implicatures are established, or
cancelled, in inquisitive pragmatics.
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