Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: The English lexical item why can be used metacommunicatively in response to a previous question act. In these cases, its meaning is similar to “Why are you (the original questioner) asking me (the original addressee) that question?” This is also true of why’s counterparts in a range of other languages. We demonstrate how metacommunicative, or meta, why’s use and meaning is similar to and different from the paraphrase above, proposing a modal-driven ontology for why, and explore how different constructions involving meta-why are derived. We argue that meta-why is derived by eliding a question act, a syntactic object larger than a proposition, and provide support for theoretical frameworks in which discourse management and interlocutor commitment acts are encoded in syntax.
DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.1169
Authors: Rebecca Woods, Luis Vicente
Institution: Newcastle University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $551
OpenAlex ID: W3186919957