The project is soliciting applications for two Ph.D. positions! (details and application information here)

The overarching goal of this project is to understand the sentential force of “unmarked” interrogatives: How do interrogative utterances, qua interrogatives, affect their context of use? At the same time, the project comprises two subprojects that focus more narrowly on particular uses of interrogatives, and the linguistic devices used to mark them.

P2: Rhetorical uses of interrogatives

(Sven Lauer and N.N.)

Rhetorical uses of interrogatives are prima facie their most puzzling uses: While all other uses of interrogatives seem to have a request-like force, the same is not true for rhetorically-used interrogatives. At the same time, rhetorical questions are (usually) clearly addressee-directed.

The existing literature on the topic divides into two camps: One considers rhetorically-used interrogatives as “redundant questions” (Rohde, 2006; Caponigro and Sprouse, 2007). The other focusses on interrogatives that contain markings that force (or strongly encourage) a rhetorical reading, such as (otherwise unlicensed) negative polarity items (Did John lift a finger to help? ~> He did not) or discourse particles (Wer wohnt da schon? ~> Nobody (of importance)). Strikingly, these marking strategies always favor negative answers (“no” for polar interrogatives, “no-one”/“nothing” for wh-interrogatives).

Issues to be investigated in this subproject include:

1. If unmarked rhetorical interrogatives constitute vacuous requests (as per Rohde; Caponigro and Sprouse), this sets interrogatives apart from imperatives, which can generally function as requests, but never as requests for something known to be the case. That means that the “request-like” element in the force of interrogatives must crucially differ from that element of the force of imperatives.

2. Appropriately-marked rhetorical interrogatives arguably can provide novel information. In that case, these cannot be analyzed as “redundent interrogatives”. Does that mean that two kinds of “rhetorical questions” have to be recognized? Or can be such marked interrogatives be understood as biased questions, which are simply so highly biased as to make an answer unnecessary?

3. If (unmarked) rhetorical function as vacuous requests for something that already the case (e.g., making an answer common ground), then what motivation does a speaker have for uttering them?

4. The way rhetorical questions relate to the larger discourse structure is insufficiently understood. Rhetorical questions neither raise issues, nor are they intuitively used to resolve the issue they putatively raise—rather, they seem to be uttered in contexts in which the speaker takes the true answer to the interrogative to have a bearing on an another, already- open issue.

P3: Infinitival and “practical” interrogatives

(Sven Lauer and N.N.)

Infinitival interrogatives (InI) like How to get to Harlem? are a kind of non-canonical interrogative whose semantics in embedded contexts have been studied in detail, while their matrix uses have received less attention (but see Reis (2003), G&aum;rtner (2014a,b)). Reis (2003) discusses the matrix use in German, and points out the semantic following semantic properties:

1. matrix InIs always have nonpast, prospective interpretation (where to go
   now/tomorrow? / # where to go yesterday?);
2. matrix InIs always have a “modal” interpretation, either possibility (can) or necessity (should), with a goal-related (teleological) background.
3. the (implicit) subject of matrix InIs is restricted to the first person (singular or plural);
4. matrix InIs are always interpreted as self-addressed, quasi-deliberative questions, not as hearer-directed questions.

Interestingly, there are canonical matrix intterogatives in the present tense that share the first three characteristics, but not the the last—they function as canonical interrogatives do. We call these ‘practical interrogatives’ (PI):

1. How do I go to Harlem (tomorrow/#yesterday)?
   ≈ How can/should I go to Harlem tomorrow?

Issues to be investigated in this subproject include:

1. In InIs, the modal interpretation (and hence the possibility of future orientation) has been attributed to the fact that they contain infinitives. If so, where doesthe modal interpretation comes from in PIs?

2. InIs and PIs differ minimally both syntactically and semantically. They are alike in all respects except that (i) InIs are infinitival while PIs are finite and (ii) the subject of InIs is implicit, while PIs contain an explicit first person pronoun.

   Can the difference in possible uses (InIs: self-addressed only, PIs: full range of uses) be derived on the basis of these differences?

3. Even though PIs are canonical interrogatives, and share their range of uses, they have some particular properties that set them apart.

   • First, along with their modalized counterparts, they are among a small range of interroga- tives that apparently admit imperatives as congruent answers How do/can/should I go to Harlem?—Take the A train!
   • Secondly, PIs generally get ‘mention-some’ interpretations—a speaker who asks How do I go to Harlem? does not ask for a comprehensive list of ways to get to Harlem, but only for one (intuitively, the best) way of doing so. With non-practical interrogatives, ‘mention-some’ interpretations can often be difficult to obtain, but with practical ones, they arise regularly.

   Can these facts be derived from the ‘practicality’ of PIs, i.e. the fact that they are asked in contexts in which the speaker wonders how to achieve a goal mentioned in the question?