A comparative corpus study on a case of non-canonical question
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Lucia M. Tovena
Abstract
This paper concerns wh-interrogatives with French comment ‘how’ in their reason interpretation. Some of the peculiarities that make them non-canonical are the modified semantic type of the domain of the wh-item, which is closer to propositions than to ‘manners’, and a high base generation position. These questions are used by a speaker to put on hold a (possibly implicit) invitation from the interlocutors to admit the prejacent into the common ground, and tackle preconditions to admitting it. We aim to gain insight about the characterisation of reason-comment by testing potential constraints on its occurrences, using data about lack of subject-auxiliary inversion from corpora research. The paper reports on a survey that reveals that these questions facilitate the setting up a jousting discursive procedure, in monological texts. They are not among the characteristics of informal French.
Funding source: Procope
Award Identifier / Grant number: n.42412PC
Funding source: Parrot
Award Identifier / Grant number: n.42231NG
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Enzo Laurenti and Loïc Liegeois for help in consulting the corpora, and to Enzo Laurenti, David Adger, Lisa Brunetti, Damien Fleury and Virginia Hill for interactions. We thank the anonymous reviewers.
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Research funding: Partial financial support from the collaborative projects Procope (n.42412PC) and Parrot (n.42231NG) (awarded to Agnès Celle) is gratefully acknowledged.
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Non-canonical questions from a comparative perspective: Introduction to the special collection
- A comparative corpus study on a case of non-canonical question
- Interpreting high negation in Negative Interrogatives: the role of the Other
- French questions alternating between a reason and a manner interpretation
- The pragmatics of surprise-disapproval questions: An empirical study
- Non-standard questions in English, German, and Japanese
- Timing of belief as a key to cross-linguistic variation in common ground management
- The prosody of French rhetorical questions
- Surprise questions in spoken French
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Non-canonical questions from a comparative perspective: Introduction to the special collection
- A comparative corpus study on a case of non-canonical question
- Interpreting high negation in Negative Interrogatives: the role of the Other
- French questions alternating between a reason and a manner interpretation
- The pragmatics of surprise-disapproval questions: An empirical study
- Non-standard questions in English, German, and Japanese
- Timing of belief as a key to cross-linguistic variation in common ground management
- The prosody of French rhetorical questions
- Surprise questions in spoken French
