Predicates of Relevance and Theories of Question Embedding
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Lahiri (2002) classifies question embedding predicates into two major types, rogative and responsive predicates. Rogative predicates like wonder are only compatible with interrogative complements, while responsive predicates like know are also compatible with declarative complements. There are two main theories of responsive predicates: The question-to-proposition reduction approach holds that responsive predicates semantically always select for propositions and that both declarative and interrogative complements to them denote propositions (Heim 1994; Dayal 1996; Lahiri 2002; Spector & Egré 2015). The proposition-to-question reduction approach (Groenendijk and Stokhof 1984; Theiler et al. 2015; Uegaki 2015) assumes that responsive predicates semantically always select for question denotations and declarative complements denote resolved questions. We argue that Predicates of Relevance (PoRs) favour the latter approach.
Source: Journal of Semantics
DOI: 10.1093/jos/ffx008
Institutions: University College London, Leiden University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2610797707