list of research topics in semantics

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Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics

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This new series focuses on the main topics of study in semantic and pragmatic theory today. It consists of accessible yet challenging accounts of the most important issues to consider when examining the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. Some topics have been the subject of study for many years, and are here re-examined in the light of new developments in the field; others are issues of growing importance that have not so far been given a sustained treatment. Written by leading experts, the books in the series are designed to be used on courses and in seminars, and include useful suggestions for further reading and a helpful glossary.

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12 results in Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics

Connectives and Discourse Relations

• Sandrine Zufferey , Liesbeth Degand
• Published online: 22 February 2024 Print publication: 29 February 2024
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• View description Illustrated with examples from a rich range of languages and genres, this book provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the meanings and functions of connectives, and the discourse relations they communicate. It begins with theoretical chapters that illustrate the many interfaces present in the study of connectives and discourse relations, using diachronic data to illustrate how connectives incorporate such a wide range of functions in synchronic language use. The second half of the book presents the rapidly growing body of studies that have used empirical data to assess theories of connectives and discourse relations, spanning fields as diverse as discourse processing, first and second language acquisition, and cross-linguistic studies. End-of-chapter discussion questions and lists of further readings are included, along with a comprehensive glossary of key terms. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Naming and Indexicality

• Gregory Bochner
• Published online: 02 December 2021 Print publication: 09 December 2021
• View description How do words stand for things? Taking ideas from philosophical semantics and pragmatics, this book offers a unique, detailed, and critical survey of central debates concerning linguistic reference in the twentieth century. It then uses the survey to identify and argue for a novel version of current 'two-dimensional' theories of meaning, which generalise the context-dependency of indexical expressions. The survey highlights the history of tensions between semantic and epistemic constraints on plausible theories of word meaning, from analytic philosophy and modern truth-conditional semantics, to the Referentialist and Externalist revolutions in theories of meaning, to the more recent reconciliatory ambition of two-dimensionalists. It clearly introduces technical semantical notions, theses, and arguments, with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides. Wide-ranging in its scope, yet offering an accessible route into literature that can seem complex and technical, this will be essential reading for advanced students, and academic researchers in semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language.

Indirect Speech Acts

• Nicolas Ruytenbeek
• Published online: 21 May 2021 Print publication: 10 June 2021
• View description To achieve successful communication, it is crucial to say clearly what we mean, but, at the same time, we need to pay attention to the form of our utterances, to avoid misunderstandings and the risk of offending our interlocutors. To avoid these pitfalls, we use a special category of utterances called 'indirect speech acts' (ISAs) that enable an optimal balance between clarity and politeness. But how do interpreters identify the meaning of these ISAs? And how does the social context influence the use of ISAs? This book attempts to answer these questions. It deals with the main theoretical and empirical questions surrounding the meaning and usage of ISAs, drawing on the latest research and neuroimaging data. Adopting a truly interdisciplinary perspective, it will appeal to students and scholars from diverse backgrounds, and anyone interested in exploring this phenomenon, which is so pervasive in our daily lives.

Attitude Reports

• Thomas Grano
• Published online: 15 April 2021 Print publication: 03 June 2021
• View description Propositional attitude reports are sentences built around clause-embedding psychological verbs, like Kim believes that it's raining or Kim wants it to rain. These interact in many intricate ways with a wide variety of semantically relevant grammatical phenomena, and represent one of the most important topics at the interface of linguistics and philosophy, as their study provides insight into foundational questions about meaning. This book provides a bird's-eye overview of the grammar of propositional attitude reports, synthesizing the key facts, theories, and open problems in their analysis. Couched in the theoretical framework of generative grammar and compositional truth-conditional semantics, it places emphasis on points of intersection between propositional attitude reports and other important topics in semantic and syntactic theory. With discussion points, suggestions for further reading and a useful guide to symbols and conventions, it will be welcomed by students and researchers wishing to explore this fertile area of study.

The Semantics of Case

• Published online: 02 April 2020 Print publication: 16 April 2020
• View description The phenomenon of case has long been a central topic of study in linguistics. While the majority of the literature so far has been on the syntax of case, semantics also has a crucial role to play in how case operates. This book investigates the relationship between semantics and case-marking in the languages of the world, exploring a range of phenomena in which case-assignment is affected by (or affects) meaning. By bringing together data from a wide range of languages, representing different language families, a cross-linguistic picture emerges of the correlation between case and meaning. Different approaches to the phenomena are considered, including both syntactic and semantic analyses, and the question is raised as to whether case can be treated as meaningful, ultimately helping us shed light on the broader connections between grammar and meaning and, moreover, grammar and the human cognition.

Implicatures

• Sandrine Zufferey , Jacques Moeschler , Anne Reboul
• Published online: 10 June 2019 Print publication: 13 June 2019
• View description An accessible and thorough introduction to implicatures, a key topic in all frameworks of pragmatics. Starting with a definition of the various types of implicatures in Gricean, neo-Gricean and post-Gricean pragmatics, the book covers many important questions for current pragmatic theories, namely: the distinction between explicit and implicit forms of pragmatic enrichment, the criteria for drawing a line between semantic and pragmatic meaning, the relations between the structure of language (syntax) and its use (pragmatics), the social and cognitive factors underlying the use of implicatures by native speakers, and the factors influencing their acquisition for children and second language learners. Written in non-technical language, Implicatures will appeal to students and teachers in linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology and sociology, who are interested in how language is used for communication, and how children and learners develop pragmatic skills.

• Joana Garmendia
• Published online: 06 March 2018 Print publication: 22 March 2018
• View description Irony is an intriguing topic, central to the study of meaning in language. This book provides an introduction to the pragmatics of irony. It surveys key work carried out on irony in a range of disciplines such as semantics, pragmatics, philosophy and literary studies, and from a variety of theoretical perspectives including Grice's approach, Sperber and Wilson's echoic account, and Clark and Gerrig's pretense theory. It looks at a number of uses of irony and explores how irony can be misunderstood cross-culturally, before delving into the key debates on the pragmatics of irony: is irony always negative? Why do speakers communicate via irony, and which strategies do they usually employ? How are irony and sarcasm different? Is irony always funny? To answer these questions, basic pragmatic notions are introduced and explained. It includes multiple examples and activities to enable the reader to apply the theoretical frameworks to actual everyday instances of irony.

Semantics for Counting and Measuring

• Susan Rothstein
• Published online: 20 April 2017 Print publication: 06 April 2017
• View description The use of numerals in counting differs quite dramatically across languages. Some languages grammaticalise a contrast between count nouns (three cats, three books) vs 'non-count' or mass nouns (milk, mud), marking this distinction in different ways. Others use a system of numeral classifiers, while yet others use a combination of both. This book draws attention to the contrast between counting and measuring, and shows that it is central to our understanding of how we use numerical expressions, classifiers and count nouns in different languages. It reviews some of the more recent major linguistic results in the semantics of numericals, counting and measuring, and theories of the mass/count distinction, and presents the author's new research on the topic. The book draws heavily on crosslinguistic research, and presents in-depth case studies of the mass/count distinction and counting and measuring in a number of typologically unrelated languages. It also includes chapters on classifiers, constructions and adjectival uses of measure phrases.

Modification

• Marcin Morzycki
• Published online: 05 November 2015 Print publication: 12 November 2015
• View description Modifiers and modification have been a major focus of inquiry for as long as the formal study of semantics has existed, and remain at the heart of major theoretical debates in the field. Modification offers comprehensive coverage of a wide range of topics, including vagueness and gradability, comparatives and degree constructions, the lexical semantics of adjectives and adverbs, crosscategorial regularities, and the relation between meaning and syntactic category. Morzycki guides the reader through the varied and sometimes mysterious phenomena surrounding modification and the ideas that have been proposed to account for them. Presenting disparate approaches in a consistent analytical framework, this accessibly written work, which includes an extensive glossary of technical terms, is essential reading for researchers and students of all levels in linguistics, the philosophy of language and psycholinguistics.

Imperatives

• Mark Jary , Mikhail Kissine
• Published online: 05 July 2014 Print publication: 17 July 2014
• View description Imperative sentences usually occur in speech acts such as orders, requests, and pleas. However, they are also used to give advice, and to grant permission, and are sometimes found in advertisements, good wishes and conditional constructions. Yet, the relationship between the form of imperatives, and the wide range of speech acts in which they occur, remains unclear, as do the ways in which semantic theory should handle imperatives. This book is the first to look systematically at both the data and the theory. The first part discusses data from a large set of languages, including many outside the Indo-European family, and analyses in detail the range of uses to which imperatives are put, paying particular attention to controversial cases. This provides the empirical background for the second part, where the authors offer an accessible, comprehensive and in-depth discussion of the major theoretical accounts of imperative semantics and pragmatics.

• L. David Ritchie
• Published online: 05 February 2013 Print publication: 10 January 2013
• View description 'Metaphor', a form of figurative language in which one thing or idea is expressed in terms of another, is becoming an increasingly popular area of study, as it is relevant to the work of semanticists, pragmatists, discourse analysts and also those working at the interface of language and literature and in other disciplines such as philosophy and psychology. This book provides a summary, critique and comparison of the most important theories on how metaphors are used and understood, drawing on research from linguistics, psychology and other disciplines. In order to ground the discussion in actual language use, the book uses examples from discourse, including casual conversations, political speeches, literature, humor, religion and science. Written in a non-technical style, the book includes clear definitions, examples, discussion questions and a glossary, making it ideal for graduate-level seminars.

Meaning and Humour

• Andrew Goatly
• Published online: 05 June 2012 Print publication: 10 May 2012
• View description How are humorous meanings generated and interpreted? Understanding a joke involves knowledge of the language code (a matter mostly of semantics) and background knowledge necessary for making the inferences to get the joke (a matter of pragmatics). This book introduces and critiques a wide range of semantic and pragmatic theories in relation to humour, such as systemic functional linguistics, speech acts, politeness and relevance theory, emphasising not only conceptual but also interpersonal and textual meanings. Exploiting recent corpus-based research, it suggests that much humour can be accounted for by the overriding of lexical priming. Each chapter's discussion topics and suggestions for further reading encourage a critical approach to semantic and pragmatic theory. Written by an experienced lecturer on the linguistics of the English language, this is an entertaining and user-friendly textbook for advanced students of semantics, pragmatics and humour studies.

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Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics

This course will provide a comprehensive overview of the empirical patterns, analytical challenges and broader theoretical issues surrounding a particular topic, such as information structure, presupposition, scalar implicature, binding, aspectual composition, nominal reference, and so forth.

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211 Research Topics in Linguistics To Get Top Grades

Many people find it hard to decide on their linguistics research topics because of the assumed complexities involved. They struggle to choose easy research paper topics for English language too because they think it could be too simple for a university or college level certificate.

All that you need to learn about Linguistics and English is sprawled across syntax, phonetics, morphology, phonology, semantics, grammar, vocabulary, and a few others. To easily create a top-notch essay or conduct a research study, you can consider this list of research topics in English language below for your university or college use. Note that you can fine-tune these to suit your interests.

Linguistics Research Paper Topics

If you want to study how language is applied and its importance in the world, you can consider these Linguistics topics for your research paper. They are:

• An analysis of romantic ideas and their expression amongst French people
• An overview of the hate language in the course against religion
• Identify the determinants of hate language and the means of propagation
• Evaluate a literature and examine how Linguistics is applied to the understanding of minor languages
• Consider the impact of social media in the development of slangs
• An overview of political slang and its use amongst New York teenagers
• Examine the relevance of Linguistics in a digitalized world
• Analyze foul language and how it’s used to oppress minors
• Identify the role of language in the national identity of a socially dynamic society
• Attempt an explanation to how the language barrier could affect the social life of an individual in a new society
• Discuss the means through which language can enrich cultural identities
• Examine the concept of bilingualism and how it applies in the real world
• Analyze the possible strategies for teaching a foreign language
• Discuss the priority of teachers in the teaching of grammar to non-native speakers
• Choose a school of your choice and observe the slang used by its students: analyze how it affects their social lives
• Attempt a critical overview of racist languages
• What does endangered language means and how does it apply in the real world?
• A critical overview of your second language and why it is a second language
• What are the motivators of speech and why are they relevant?
• Analyze the difference between the different types of communications and their significance to specially-abled persons
• Give a critical overview of five literature on sign language
• Evaluate the distinction between the means of language comprehension between an adult and a teenager
• Consider a native American group and evaluate how cultural diversity has influenced their language
• Analyze the complexities involved in code-switching and code-mixing
• Give a critical overview of the importance of language to a teenager
• Attempt a forensic overview of language accessibility and what it means
• What do you believe are the means of communications and what are their uniqueness?
• Attempt a study of Islamic poetry and its role in language development
• Attempt a study on the role of Literature in language development
• Evaluate the Influence of metaphors and other literary devices in the depth of each sentence
• Identify the role of literary devices in the development of proverbs in any African country
• Cognitive Linguistics: analyze two pieces of Literature that offers a critical view of perception
• Identify and analyze the complexities in unspoken words
• Expression is another kind of language: discuss
• Identify the significance of symbols in the evolution of language
• Discuss how learning more than a single language promote cross-cultural developments
• Analyze how the loss of a mother tongue affect the language Efficiency of a community
• Critically examine how sign language works
• Using literature from the medieval era, attempt a study of the evolution of language
• Identify how wars have led to the reduction in the popularity of a language of your choice across any country of the world
• Critically examine five Literature on why accent changes based on environment
• What are the forces that compel the comprehension of language in a child
• Identify and explain the difference between the listening and speaking skills and their significance in the understanding of language
• Give a critical overview of how natural language is processed
• Examine the influence of language on culture and vice versa
• It is possible to understand a language even without living in that society: discuss
• Identify the arguments regarding speech defects
• Discuss how the familiarity of language informs the creation of slangs
• Explain the significance of religious phrases and sacred languages
• Explore the roots and evolution of incantations in Africa

Sociolinguistic Research Topics

You may as well need interesting Linguistics topics based on sociolinguistic purposes for your research. Sociolinguistics is the study and recording of natural speech. It’s primarily the casual status of most informal conversations. You can consider the following Sociolinguistic research topics for your research:

• What makes language exceptional to a particular person?
• How does language form a unique means of expression to writers?
• Examine the kind of speech used in health and emergencies
• Analyze the language theory explored by family members during dinner
• Evaluate the possible variation of language based on class
• Evaluate the language of racism, social tension, and sexism
• Discuss how Language promotes social and cultural familiarities
• Give an overview of identity and language
• Examine why some language speakers enjoy listening to foreigners who speak their native language
• Give a forensic analysis of his the language of entertainment is different to the language in professional settings
• Give an understanding of how Language changes
• Examine the Sociolinguistics of the Caribbeans
• Consider an overview of metaphor in France
• Explain why the direct translation of written words is incomprehensible in Linguistics
• Discuss the use of language in marginalizing a community
• Analyze the history of Arabic and the culture that enhanced it
• Discuss the growth of French and the influences of other languages
• Examine how the English language developed and its interdependence on other languages
• Give an overview of cultural diversity and Linguistics in teaching
• Challenge the attachment of speech defect with disability of language listening and speaking abilities
• Explore the uniqueness of language between siblings
• Explore the means of making requests between a teenager and his parents
• Observe and comment on how students relate with their teachers through language
• Observe and comment on the communication of strategy of parents and teachers
• Examine the connection of understanding first language with academic excellence

Language Research Topics

Numerous languages exist in different societies. This is why you may seek to understand the motivations behind language through these Linguistics project ideas. You can consider the following interesting Linguistics topics and their application to language:

• What does language shift mean?
• Discuss the stages of English language development?
• Examine the position of ambiguity in a romantic Language of your choice
• Why are some languages called romantic languages?
• Observe the strategies of persuasion through Language
• Discuss the connection between symbols and words
• Identify the language of political speeches
• Discuss the effectiveness of language in an indigenous cultural revolution
• Trace the motivators for spoken language
• What does language acquisition mean to you?
• Examine three pieces of literature on language translation and its role in multilingual accessibility
• Identify the science involved in language reception
• Interrogate with the context of language disorders
• Examine how psychotherapy applies to victims of language disorders
• Study the growth of Hindi despite colonialism
• Critically appraise the term, language erasure
• Examine how colonialism and war is responsible for the loss of language
• Give an overview of the difference between sounds and letters and how they apply to the German language
• Explain why the placement of verb and preposition is different in German and English languages
• Choose two languages of your choice and examine their historical relationship
• Discuss the strategies employed by people while learning new languages
• Discuss the role of all the figures of speech in the advancement of language
• Analyze the complexities of autism and its victims
• Offer a linguist approach to language uniqueness between a Down Syndrome child and an autist
• Express dance as a language
• Express music as a language
• Express language as a form of language
• Evaluate the role of cultural diversity in the decline of languages in South Africa
• Discuss the development of the Greek language
• Critically review two literary texts, one from the medieval era and another published a decade ago, and examine the language shifts

Linguistics Essay Topics

You may also need Linguistics research topics for your Linguistics essays. As a linguist in the making, these can help you consider controversies in Linguistics as a discipline and address them through your study. You can consider:

• The connection of sociolinguistics in comprehending interests in multilingualism
• Write on your belief of how language encourages sexism
• What do you understand about the differences between British and American English?
• Discuss how slangs grew and how they started
• Consider how age leads to loss of language
• Review how language is used in formal and informal conversation
• Discuss what you understand by polite language
• Discuss what you know by hate language
• Evaluate how language has remained flexible throughout history
• Mimicking a teacher is a form of exercising hate Language: discuss
• Body Language and verbal speech are different things: discuss
• Language can be exploitative: discuss
• Do you think language is responsible for inciting aggression against the state?
• Can you justify the structural representation of any symbol of your choice?
• Religious symbols are not ordinary Language: what are your perspective on day-to-day languages and sacred ones?
• Consider the usage of language by an English man and someone of another culture
• Discuss the essence of code-mixing and code-switching
• Attempt a psychological assessment on the role of language in academic development
• How does language pose a challenge to studying?
• Choose a multicultural society of your choice and explain the problem they face
• What forms does Language use in expression?
• Identify the reasons behind unspoken words and actions
• Why do universal languages exist as a means of easy communication?
• Examine the role of the English language in the world
• Examine the role of Arabic in the world
• Examine the role of romantic languages in the world
• Evaluate the significance of each teaching Resources in a language classroom
• Consider an assessment of language analysis
• Why do people comprehend beyond what is written or expressed?
• What is the impact of hate speech on a woman?
• Do you believe that grammatical errors are how everyone’s comprehension of language is determined?
• Observe the Influence of technology in language learning and development
• Which parts of the body are responsible for understanding new languages
• How has language informed development?
• Would you say language has improved human relations or worsened it considering it as a tool for violence?
• Would you say language in a black populous state is different from its social culture in white populous states?
• Give an overview of the English language in Nigeria
• Give an overview of the English language in Uganda
• Give an overview of the English language in India
• Give an overview of Russian in Europe
• Give a conceptual analysis on stress and how it works
• Consider the means of vocabulary development and its role in cultural relationships
• Examine the effects of Linguistics in language
• Present your understanding of sign language
• What do you understand about descriptive language and prescriptive Language?

List of Research Topics in English Language

You may need English research topics for your next research. These are topics that are socially crafted for you as a student of language in any institution. You can consider the following for in-depth analysis:

• Examine the travail of women in any feminist text of your choice
• Examine the movement of feminist literature in the Industrial period
• Give an overview of five Gothic literature and what you understand from them
• Examine rock music and how it emerged as a genre
• Evaluate the cultural association with Nina Simone’s music
• What is the relevance of Shakespeare in English literature?
• How has literature promoted the English language?
• Identify the effect of spelling errors in the academic performance of students in an institution of your choice
• Critically survey a university and give rationalize the literary texts offered as Significant
• Examine the use of feminist literature in advancing the course against patriarchy
• Give an overview of the themes in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
• Express the significance of Ernest Hemingway’s diction in contemporary literature
• Examine the predominant devices in the works of William Shakespeare
• Explain the predominant devices in the works of Christopher Marlowe
• Charles Dickens and his works: express the dominating themes in his Literature
• Why is Literature described as the mirror of society?
• Examine the issues of feminism in Sefi Atta’s “Everything Good Will Come” and Bernadine Evaristos’s “Girl, Woman, Other”
• Give an overview of the stylistics employed in the writing of “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernadine Evaristo
• Describe the language of advertisement in social media and newspapers
• Describe what poetic Language means
• Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing on Mexican Americans
• Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing in Indian Americans
• Discuss the influence of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” on satirical literature
• Examine the Linguistics features of “Native Son” by Richard Wright
• What is the role of indigenous literature in promoting cultural identities
• How has literature informed cultural consciousness?
• Analyze five literature on semantics and their Influence on the study
• Assess the role of grammar in day to day communications
• Observe the role of multidisciplinary approaches in understanding the English language
• What does stylistics mean while analyzing medieval literary texts?
• Analyze the views of philosophers on language, society, and culture

English Research Paper Topics for College Students

For your college work, you may need to undergo a study of any phenomenon in the world. Note that they could be Linguistics essay topics or mainly a research study of an idea of your choice. Thus, you can choose your research ideas from any of the following:

• The concept of fairness in a democratic Government
• The capacity of a leader isn’t in his or her academic degrees
• The concept of discrimination in education
• The theory of discrimination in Islamic states
• The idea of school policing
• A study on grade inflation and its consequences
• A study of taxation and Its importance to the economy from a citizen’s perspectives
• A study on how eloquence lead to discrimination amongst high school students
• A study of the influence of the music industry in teens
• An Evaluation of pornography and its impacts on College students
• A descriptive study of how the FBI works according to Hollywood
• A critical consideration of the cons and pros of vaccination
• The health effect of sleep disorders
• An overview of three literary texts across three genres of Literature and how they connect to you
• A critical overview of “King Oedipus”: the role of the supernatural in day to day life
• Examine the novel “12 Years a Slave” as a reflection of servitude and brutality exerted by white slave owners
• Rationalize the emergence of racist Literature with concrete examples
• A study of the limits of literature in accessing rural readers
• Analyze the perspectives of modern authors on the Influence of medieval Literature on their craft
• What do you understand by the mortality of a literary text?
• A study of controversial Literature and its role in shaping the discussion
• A critical overview of three literary texts that dealt with domestic abuse and their role in changing the narratives about domestic violence
• Choose three contemporary poets and analyze the themes of their works
• Do you believe that contemporary American literature is the repetition of unnecessary themes already treated in the past?
• A study of the evolution of Literature and its styles
• The use of sexual innuendos in literature
• The use of sexist languages in literature and its effect on the public
• The disaster associated with media reports of fake news
• Conduct a study on how language is used as a tool for manipulation
• Attempt a criticism of a controversial Literary text and why it shouldn’t be studied or sold in the first place

Finding Linguistics Hard To Write About?

With these topics, you can commence your research with ease. However, if you need professional writing help for any part of the research, you can scout here online for the best research paper writing service.

There are several expert writers on ENL hosted on our website that you can consider for a fast response on your research study at a cheap price.

As students, you may be unable to cover every part of your research on your own. This inability is the reason you should consider expert writers for custom research topics in Linguistics approved by your professor for high grades.

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Article contents

Semantic theories of questions.

• Floris Roelofsen Floris Roelofsen Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.504
• Published online: 30 October 2019

This survey article discusses two basic issues that semantic theories of questions face. The first is how to conceptualize and formally represent the semantic content of questions. This issue arises in particular because the standard truth-conditional notion of meaning, which has been fruitful in the analysis of declarative statements, is not applicable to questions. This is because questions are not naturally construed as being true or false. Instead, it has been proposed that the semantic content of a question must be characterized in terms of its answerhood or resolution conditions. This article surveys a number of theories which develop this basic idea in different ways, focusing on so-called proposition-set theories (alternative semantics, partition semantics, and inquisitive semantics).

The second issue that will be considered here concerns questions that are embedded within larger sentences. Within this domain, one important puzzle is why certain predicates can take both declarative and interrogative complements (e.g., Bill knows that Mary called / Bill knows who called ), while others take only declarative complements (e.g., Bill thinks that Mary called / *Bill thinks who called ) or only interrogative complements (e.g., Bill wonders who called / *Bill wonders that Mary called ). We compare two general approaches that have been pursued in the literature. One assumes that declarative and interrogative complements differ in semantic type. On this approach, the fact that predicates like think do not take interrogative complements can be accounted for by assuming that such complements do not have the semantic type that think selects for. The other approach treats the two kinds of complement as having the same semantic type, and seeks to connect the selectional restrictions of predicates like think to other semantic properties (e.g., the fact that think is neg-raising).

• semantics of questions
• alternative semantics
• partition semantics
• inquisitive semantics
• interrogative complements
• clause-embedding predicates

1. Introduction

Formal semantic theories traditionally construe the meaning of a sentence in terms of its truth-conditions : to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which the sentence is true, and those under which it is false. This notion of meaning has been very fruitful in the analysis of declarative statements, but it does not straightforwardly apply to questions , which are not naturally thought of as being true or false in a given situation. Thus, the most basic issue that semantic theories of questions need to address is the following:

Issue 1: How should the semantic content of a question be conceptualized, and how should it be represented formally?

Questions are not only of interest in their own right. They can also be part of declarative statements and as such contribute to the truth-conditional content of such statements. For instance, a question can serve as the argument of clause-embedding predicates like wonder and know , as illustrated in (1) and (2) : 1

This shows that statements and questions cannot be fully understood in isolation from each other; rather, they need to be analyzed in an integrated way. Specifically, the following issue needs to be addressed:

Issue 2: How do questions, when embedded in a declarative statement, contribute to the truth-conditional content of that statement?

This article discusses and compares various ways in which the literature has addressed these two issues. Section 2 is devoted to the first issue and Section 3 to the second.

Other important topics in the semantic literature on questions include the role of questions in discourse and the way in which the semantic content of a question should be derived compositionally. However, a proper discussion of these topics would require more space than available here. For recent surveys paying specific attention to the role of questions in discourse, the interested reader is referred to Ginzburg ( 2010 ) and Dekker, Aloni, and Groenendijk ( 2016 ); for discussion of how question meanings are compositionally derived, see Krifka ( 2011 ), Dayal ( 2016 ), and Ciardelli, Groenendijk, and Roelofsen ( 2018 ). 2

2. The Semantic Content of Questions

This section discusses how the semantic content of questions is conceptualized and formally represented in a number of theoretical frameworks, focusing on so-called proposition-set frameworks . What these have in common is that they formally represent the semantic content of a question as a set of propositions—where each proposition is, as usual, a set of possible worlds.

However, the various frameworks differ in how exactly they conceptualize the propositions that make up the semantic content of a question: in alternative semantics (Hamblin, 1973 ; Karttunen, 1977 ) they are thought of as representing the possible answers to the question, in partition semantics (Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1984 ) they are thought of as representing exhaustive answers , and in inquisitive semantics (Ciardelli et al., 2018 ) they are thought of as pieces of information that resolve the issue that the question expresses. These subtle conceptual differences have important repercussions.

One consequence, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that the three frameworks differ in which kinds of proposition-sets they regard as proper question meanings. In Figure 1 , the three frameworks are ordered from left to right in terms of restrictiveness—i.e., the extent to which they constrain the kinds of proposition-sets that qualify as question meanings. The development through time is indicated by the curved arrows. Alternative semantics, developed in the 1970s, is the least restrictive among the three, i.e., the one that imposes the fewest constraints on which sets of propositions qualify as question meanings. This, as we will see in section 2.1 , leads to problems of overgeneration. Partition semantics on the other hand, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, is the most restrictive framework—leading to problems of undergeneration. Finally, inquisitive semantics, developed in the 2000s and 2010s, tries to strike a balance between its two predecessors, in order to avoid the problems of over- and undergeneration. 3

Section 2.1 discusses alternative semantics, section 2.2 discusses partition semantics, and section 2.3 discusses inquisitive semantics. Finally, section 2.4 will discuss some limitations shared by all proposition-set frameworks in their basic form, and some ways in which these limitations have been addressed in more fine-grained semantic frameworks (Aloni, 2005 ; Aloni & van Rooij, 2002 ; Ginzburg, 1995a , 1995b ; Ginzburg & Sag, 2000 ; Krifka, 2001 , 2013 ; Roelofsen & Farkas, 2015 , among others).

Figure 1. Proposition-set theories, ordered chronologically and in terms of restrictiveness.

2.1 Alternative Semantics

Alternative semantics is based on the idea that “questions set up a choice-situation between a set of propositions, namely those propositions that count as answers to it” (Hamblin, 1973 , p. 48).

One way to implement this idea is to take a question to denote, in a world w , the set of propositions that correspond to a possible answer to the question (Hamblin, 1973 ). Another way to implement the same idea is to let a question denote, in a world w , the set of propositions that correspond to its true answers in w (Karttunen, 1977 ). In both systems, the intension of a question is a function from worlds to sets of propositions. In Hamblin’s system, this function maps every possible world to the same set of propositions, corresponding to the set of all possible answers; in Karttunen’s system, every world is mapped to a subset of all possible answers, namely, those that are true in the given world. As noted by Karttunen ( 1977 , p. 10), the difference is inessential. In both cases, the meaning of a question is fully determined by—and can be identified with—the set of all propositions corresponding to a possible answer.

This classical view on question meanings faces three fundamental problems.

Problem 1: what are possible answers? The first problem, discussed in detail in Ciardelli et al. ( 2018 ) and Ciardelli ( 2017 ), is that the framework’s core notion—that of a possible answer —is difficult to pin down. Of course, Hamblin and Karttunen do provide a compositional semantics for a fragment of English, and thereby specify what they take to be the possible answers to the questions in that fragment. But in order to assess such a compositional theory, or even to properly understand what its predictions amount to, we first need to have a pre-theoretical notion of possible answers, one that the theoretical predictions can be evaluated against. The problem is that such a pre-theoretical notion is difficult, if not impossible to identify. To illustrate this, consider the question in (3) and the responses in (4) :

In principle, the propositions expressed by the declaratives in (4) could all be seen as possible answers to (3) . For Hamblin and Karttunen, only (4a) counts as such. However, it is not clear what the precise criteria are for being considered a possible answer, and on what grounds (4a) is to be distinguished from (4b–d) .

Problem 2: entailment A second problem, pointed out in Groenendijk and Stokhof ( 1984 ), is that it is not clear how a suitable notion of entailment could be defined in this framework which would capture, for instance, that a question like (3) above subsumes the one in (5) below.

The absence of a suitable notion of entailment also makes it difficult to give a principled account of the interaction between questions and logical connectives and quantifiers. In particular, the standard treatment of conjunction and disjunction as meet and join operators (see, e.g., Champollion, 2016 ; Keenan & Faltz, 1985 ; Partee & Rooth, 1983 ; Winter, 2001 ) cannot be maintained, since these operators are defined in terms of entailment. 4

Problem 3: overgeneration A third problem, noted in Ciardelli and Roelofsen ( 2017 ), is that there are question meanings in alternative semantics which seem impossible to express in natural languages. These are question meanings containing two propositions p and q , such that one is strictly contained in the other, p ⊂ q .

One may think that such meanings may be expressible by disjunctive questions, where each disjunct contributes one of the two propositions. However, in order to get that p ⊂ q , we would have to construct the question in such a way that one disjunct entails the other. As illustrated in (6) and (7) , such questions are infelicitous.

It has been well-known since Hurford ( 1974 ) that disjunctive declaratives where one disjunct entails the other are generally infelicitous as well.

The degradedness of such declarative sentences has been given an appealing account in terms of redundancy (Katzir & Singh, 2013 ; Meyer, 2014 ; Simons, 2001 ). Essentially, in a truth-conditional semantics, the stronger disjunct is redundant in the sense that it does not contribute anything to the truth conditions of the sentence.

However, in alternative semantics, the disjunctive questions in (6) and (7) do not contain any redundant disjunct: each disjunct contributes one element to the proposition-set associated with the question. Thus, in alternative semantics, the redundancy-based explanation does not carry over from declaratives to questions.

2.2 Partition Semantics

In partition semantics (Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1984 ) a question denotes, in each world in which its presuppositions are satisfied, a single proposition embodying the true exhaustive answer to the question in that world. For instance, if w is a world in which Paul and Nina are coming for dinner, and nobody else is coming, then the denotation of (10) in w is the proposition expressed by (11) .

The intension of a question, then, is a function from worlds to propositions. These propositions are taken to have two special properties: they are mutually exclusive (since two different exhaustive answers are always incompatible), and together they form a cover of the set of all possible worlds in which the presuppositions of the question are satisfied (since in every such world the question is assumed to have a true exhaustive answer). So the meaning of a question can be identified with a set of propositions which form a partition of the set of possible worlds that satisfy the question’s presuppositions.

Problem: undergeneration For some questions, it is intuitively clear what their true exhaustive answer is in any given world, and it is also clear that fully resolving the question requires establishing such an answer. A case in point is the constituent question in (10) . However, as first extensively argued in Belnap ( 1982 ), there are many kinds of questions for which it is either unclear what their true exhaustive answer is in a given world, or which can be fully resolved without establishing an exhaustive answer. For example, this holds for the mention-some question in (12) , the approximate value question in (13) , and the disjunctive question in (14) .

For instance, an exhaustive answer to (12) would specify all places in Pittsburgh where one can get gas on a Sunday, and would moreover establish that there are no other such places. However, (12) has a prominent reading under which it does not require such an exhaustive response; rather, it suffices to specify just one place in Pittsburgh where one can get gas on a Sunday. This cannot be captured in partition semantics without substantially complicating the theory (see Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1984 ). And similarly for (13) and (14) .

2.3 Inquisitive Semantics

In inquisitive semantics (Ciardelli et al., 2018 ) the semantic content of a question is intended to capture its resolution conditions . Formally, the semantic content of a question is still represented as a set of propositions, but these propositions do not necessarily correspond to possible or exhaustive answers. Rather, they embody pieces of information that resolve the issue expressed by the question. As a consequence, the set of propositions associated with a question Q is always downward closed . That is, if it contains a proposition p , it must also contain any stronger proposition p ′ ⊂ p . After all, if p resolves Q , any p ′ ⊂ p will do so as well.

For instance, the question in (10) is associated with the set of propositions which establish exactly who is coming for dinner. On the other hand, the mention-some question in (12) is associated with the set of propositions which establish for some place in Pittsburgh that one can get gas there on a Sunday. The approximate value question in (13) is associated with the set of propositions which establish for some n that the number of stars in the Milky Way is between n − 10 and n + 10 . And the disjunctive question in (14) is associated with the set of propositions which either establish of some place that we can rent a car there or establish of some person that they have a car we could borrow. Thus, inquisitive semantics is less restrictive than partition semantics; it can be applied to a wider range of question types.

The shortcomings of alternative semantics are also addressed. First, pre-theoretical intuitions about whether a certain piece of information resolves a given question seem much more clear-cut than intuitions about what constitutes a “possible answer.” For instance, the question in (3) is clearly resolved by the propositions expressed by (4a) and (4b) , but not by those expressed by (4c) and (4d) .

Second, entailment between questions can simply be defined as set inclusion, just as entailment between statements in truth-conditional semantics. This captures, for instance, the fact that the question in (3) subsumes the one in (5) , since every proposition that resolves the former also resolves the latter. Moreover, given this notion of entailment, conjunction and disjunction can simply be treated as meet and join operators, and similarly for other logical connectives and quantifiers (Ciardelli et al., 2017 ; Roelofsen, 2013 ).

Third, the overgeneration problem that alternative semantics faces no longer arises. Since question meanings are assumed to be downward closed, inquisitive semantics predicts that questions like (6) and (7) involve a redundant disjunct, which means that the redundancy-based account of declarative Hurford disjunctions can straightforwardly be lifted to questions (Ciardelli & Roelofsen, 2017 ). This result is a direct consequence of the fact that inquisitive semantics is more restrictive than alternative semantics, which in turn is due to the fact that the set of propositions associated with a question, viewed as issue-resolving pieces of information, is always downward closed.

2.4 Limitations and Extensions of Proposition-Set Theories

Proposition-set theories are designed to capture a certain fundamental semantic property of questions, namely, their resolution/answerhood conditions. Other semantic properties of questions are beyond the immediate scope of these theories. In order to capture such properties, several approaches have been pursued, often within semantic frameworks that are more fine-grained than the standard possible worlds framework. For instance, the approach of von Stechow ( 1991 ) and Krifka ( 2001 ) is couched in a structured meanings framework, that of Ginzburg and Sag ( 2000 ) in situation semantics, that of Ginzburg ( 2005 ) and Cooper and Ginzburg ( 2012 ) in type theory with records, those of Aloni, Beaver, Clark, and van Rooij ( 2007 ) and Haida ( 2007 ) in dynamic semantics, and that of Blutner ( 2012 ) in ortho-algebraic semantics.

In Section 2.4.1 we will briefly discuss two of the phenomena that have given rise to these more fine-grained theories. In Section 2.4.2 we will turn to a number of contextual parameters that play a role in the semantics of questions, again requiring further refinements of the basic proposition-set theories surveyed above.

2.4.1 Beyond Resolution Conditions: Anaphora and Bias

Compare the polar question in (15) , the alternative question in (16) , and the tag question in (17) .

These questions have exactly the same resolution conditions. Namely, a proposition resolves the issue expressed by any of them if and only if it either implies that the door is open, or that the door is closed. Thus, in inquisitive semantics, (15) – (17) are all associated with the same set of propositions, namely, those propositions that either consist only of worlds where the door is open or only of worlds where the door is closed. Similarly, since the true exhaustive answer to all three questions is either the proposition that the door is open (in worlds in which it’s open) or the proposition that the door is closed (in worlds in which it’s closed), (15) – (17) are also semantically equivalent in partition semantics. Finally, the standard assumption in alternative semantics is that (15) – (17) all have the same possible answers, which again renders them semantically equivalent. 5

It is evident that certain important properties of (15) – (17) are left unaccounted for in this way. After all, while these questions indeed have the same resolution conditions, they differ in their overall conversational effects. For instance, (15) allows for yes / no answers and other anaphoric continuations, while (16) does not, as seen in (18) and (19) , respectively.

Moreover, (17) conveys a bias on the part of the speaker that the door is open, while (15) and (16) do not. That is, a speaker who is known to have no evidence whatsoever as to whether the door is open or closed can felicitously ask the polar question in (15) or the alternative question in (16) , but not the tag question in (17) .

Basic proposition-set theories are not equipped to capture such differences. Dealing with yes / no answers and other anaphoric continuations requires a framework in which the semantics of a question captures not only its resolution/answerhood conditions but also the antecedents that the question makes available for subsequent anaphoric expressions. Concrete analyses of yes / no answers have been developed in dynamic versions of alternative semantics (Krifka, 2013 ) and partition semantics (Aloni et al., 2007 ), a version of inquisitive semantics enriched with “highlighted” propositions (Roelofsen & Farkas, 2015 ), as well as in situation semantics (Ginzburg & Sag, 2000 ), in ortho-algebraic semantics (Blutner, 2012 ), and in a structured meaning framework (Krifka, 2001 ). For a recent survey of some of these approaches to yes / no answers, see Roelofsen and Farkas ( 2015 ).

As for the bias conveyed by tag questions like (17) , this may be captured by integrating proposition-set theories of questions with commitment-based models of discourse (e.g., Farkas & Bruce, 2010 ; Gunlogson, 2001 ), allowing for various kinds and levels of speaker commitment. For such approaches, see Krifka ( 2015 ), Malamud and Stephenson ( 2015 ), and Farkas and Roelofsen ( 2017 ).

2.4.2 Contextual Parameters

Just like the truth conditions of a declarative sentence, the resolution conditions of a question are rarely completely determined by grammar alone; rather, they may depend on the conversational context in various ways. 6 Some of the relevant contextual factors can be illustrated by considering the following examples.

A first important contextual parameter is the intended domain of quantification . For instance, the issue expressed by (20a) depends on the set of students which are relevant in the context of utterance. Clearly, dependency on a contextually determined domain is not specific to questions, but rather a general aspect of quantification (see, e.g., von Fintel, 1994 ).

A second important contextual parameter manifests itself in (20b) . The issue expressed by this question depends not only on the intended domain of quantification but also on the intended method of identification (Aloni, 2005 ). Suppose that the question is asked in a situation in which there are two cards on the table, face down. If (20b) is asked by someone who wants to pick the winning card, it is resolved by any piece of information that conveys whether the winning card is the one on the left or the one on the right. On the other hand, if (20b) is asked by someone who doesn’t know the rules of the game and wants a description of the winning card in terms of suit and number, then it is resolved by a piece of information that conveys, for example, that the winning card is the ace of hearts.

The issue expressed by (20c) depends, again besides the intended domain of quantification, also on the kind of goal that the questioner is trying to achieve in asking the question (van Rooij, 2003 ). For instance, she may be trying to identify someone who could give her a ride to the party, or she may want to draw up a list of all the people driving to the party. In the first case, the question gets a mention-some interpretation: to resolve it, it suffices to specify one person who is driving to the party. In the second case, the question gets a mention-all interpretation: in this case, to resolve the question it is necessary to specify the complete set of people who are driving to the party.

Finally, the issue raised by (20d) depends on the intended level of granularity (Ginzburg, 1995a , 1995b ). In some contexts, the information that Mary is, say, at home is sufficient to resolve the question. In other contexts, Mary’s location needs to be determined more precisely, for instance, by determining which room she is in.

It seems that the techniques that have been developed to deal with these contextual factors (see Aloni, 2005 ; Ginzburg, 1995a , 1995b ; van Rooij, 2003 ; among others) can in principle be combined with proposition-set theories of any flavor. That is, issues of context-sensitivity seem orthogonal to the choice between alternative semantics, partition semantics, and inquisitive semantics.

3. Question Embedding

We now turn to embedded questions, i.e., interrogative complement clauses, and the predicates that take such clauses as their argument. A first important observation to make is that there are predicates that take both interrogative and declarative complements, exemplified in (21) , but also ones that take only interrogative or only declarative complements, as seen in (22) and (23) , respectively.

Predicates that license both kinds of complements are referred to as responsive predicates, ones that only license interrogative complements as rogative predicates, and ones that only license declarative complements as anti-rogative predicates.

As depicted in Figure 2 , theories of question embedding can be divided into two kinds: on the one hand (the left branch of the tree), there are several approaches that assume a type distinction between interrogative and declarative complements. On the other hand (the right branch), there are approaches that do not assume such a type distinction, pursuing a uniform treatment of the two kinds of complement. We will discuss the type-distinction approaches in section 3.1 , and the uniform approaches in section 3.2 . Finally, in section 3.3 we will compare the most promising type-distinction approach and the most promising uniform approach with each other.

Figure 2. Different approaches to the semantics of interrogative and declarative complements.

3.1 Type-Distinction Approaches

The type-distinction approaches that we will discuss here all assume that an interrogative complement denotes a set of propositions, while a declarative complement denotes a single proposition. 7 Prima facie, it is unexpected under this view that there are predicates like know and forget which take both declarative and interrogative complements as their argument. Various ways to resolve this tension have been proposed.

Most authors assume that responsive predicates want a single proposition as their input—not a set of propositions. This means that if the complement of a responsive predicate is interrogative, a type mismatch arises. Heim ( 1994 ), Dayal ( 1996 ), and Beck and Rullmann ( 1999 ), among others, propose that this type mismatch is resolved by a type-shifting answer operator , which transforms the set of propositions generated by the interrogative clause into a single proposition and then feeds this proposition to the predicate. Lahiri ( 2002 ) proposes that the type mismatch is resolved by raising the interrogative clause to a higher position in the syntactic structure, leaving a proposition-type variable in the predicate’s argument slot.

A different strategy, briefly suggested by Karttunen ( 1977 ) and elaborated in detail by Spector and Egré ( 2015 ), is to assume two lexical entries for every responsive predicate, one for each kind of complement. For instance, for know we would have two lexical entries, know d and know i , taking declarative and interrogative complements, respectively. Spector and Egré then formulate a general meaning postulate which, given the declarative entry P d of a predicate p , determines the corresponding interrogative entry P i .

These different strategies all have one thing in common. Namely, they take the declarative-embedding interpretation of responsive predicates to be basic, and reduce the interrogative-embedding interpretation of any given predicate in one way or another to its declarative-embedding interpretation. For this reason, all these strategies are referred to as reductive approaches.

George ( 2011 , 2013a ) identifies a general problem for reductive approaches. Namely, whether an individual stands in the knowledge relation to a certain interrogative sometimes depends not only on the individual’s true propositional knowledge but also on whether she believes any false answers to that interrogative. This “false answer sensitivity” implies that interrogative knowledge attributions cannot generally be reduced to true propositional/declarative knowledge attributions.

In reaction to this, George ( 2011 ) considers two alternative approaches. The first, which she calls the inverse reductive approach, reduces the declarative-embedding interpretation of responsive predicates to their interrogative-embedding interpretation, rather than the other way around. The second alternative, which George calls the twin relations approach, derives both the declarative-embedding interpretation and the interrogative-embedding interpretation of responsive predicates from a common lexical core. George ( 2011 ) spells out a concrete twin relations theory, and also briefly sketches a concrete inverse reductive theory. The latter has been developed in much greater detail by Uegaki ( 2015b ).

Elliott, Klinedinst, Sudo, and Uegaki ( 2017 ) discuss a phenomenon that allows us to tease apart the twin relations theory from the inverse reductive approach (as well as standard reductive approaches). The crucial observation is that so-called predicates of relevance , such as care and matter , carry a certain presupposition when taking a declarative complement, which is absent when the complement is interrogative. For instance, (24a) presupposes that John knows that Mary left, while (24b) does not presuppose that John knows or believes of any particular girl that she left.

Elliott et al. show that this is problematic for standard reductive approaches. 8 Uegaki ( 2018 ) shows that it is also problematic for George’s twin relations theory. On the other hand, it can easily be accounted for on the inverse reductive approach. 9

3.2 Uniform Approaches

Uniform approaches treat declarative and interrogative complements as being of the same semantic type. The first such approach was taken in partition semantics (Groenendijk & Stokhof, 1984 ). 10 On this account, both declarative and interrogative complements are taken to denote propositions. A declarative complement denotes the same proposition in every world, namely, the one expressed by the corresponding declarative root clause. On the other hand, the proposition denoted by an interrogative complement in a world w encodes the true exhaustive answer in w to the issue expressed by the interrogative clause. As discussed in section 2.2 , these exhaustive answers together form a partition of the set of all possible worlds.

On this theory, the existence of responsive predicates like know , which license both types of complements, does not come as a surprise and needs no particular explanation. Predicates of relevance like care and matter can also be handled straightforwardly, unlike in reductive theories and the twin relations theory. However, certain issues remain.

First, partition theory is, so to speak, still too close to the reductive approach to be able to deal with George’s ( 2011 ) observations concerning false answer sensitivity. That is, it still wrongly predicts that if two individuals have the same propositional knowledge, they must stand in the knowledge relation to exactly the same interrogative complements as well. 11

A second limitation of partition theory, already discussed in section 2 , is its lack of flexibility. That is, while it straightforwardly derives so-called strongly exhaustive (SE) readings for interrogative complements, it needs to invoke substantial additional machinery to derive non-exhaustive/mention-some (MS) readings. Moreover, in the case of embedded questions (unlike in the case of root questions) it has been argued that there is also a reading that is weaker than the SE reading but stronger than the MS reading (e.g., Klinedinst & Rothschild, 2011 ; Spector, 2005 ). Recent experimental results seem to show that such intermediate exhaustive (IE) readings indeed exist (Cremers & Chemla, 2016 ). 12 This cannot be accounted for in partition semantics.

The more recent uniform approach of Theiler, Roelofsen, and Aloni ( 2018 ) is cast in inquisitive semantics and aims to overcome the main limitations of its partition-based predecessor. Most fundamentally, it does not treat declarative and interrogative complements as denoting propositions but as denoting sets of propositions. In the case of interrogative complements, these propositions do not encode what the true exhaustive answer to the interrogative is in a given world w but rather what its truthful resolutions are in w . Such truthful resolutions need not be exhaustive, and need not even be true in w ; they just need to be “truthful,” which means that they should not imply any false information that is directly relevant w.r.t. the issue expressed by the interrogative. For instance, if Mary is currently watching the sunset, then the proposition that she is watching the sunset drinking a martini is a truthful resolution of the question whether Mary is watching the sunset even if she is in fact not drinking a martini. This switch from true exhaustive answers to truthful resolutions makes it possible to provide a general account of the false answer sensitivity observed by George ( 2011 ), and to derive not only strongly exhaustive readings but also mention-some and intermediate exhaustive readings in a straightforward way. Moreover, as in the earlier partition-based theory, predicates of relevance are unproblematic.

Table 1. Pros and Cons of the Various Approaches to Embedded Questions

Table 1 summarizes the considerations put forth so far. 13 As far as these considerations go, the inverse reductive account of Uegaki ( 2015b ) is the most attractive option among type-distinction approaches, and the inquisitive semantics account of Theiler et al. ( 2018 ) is the most successful among uniform approaches. The next subsection briefly compares these two accounts.

3.3 Inverse Reductive versus Inquisitive

The inverse reductive approach and the inquisitive one are very close in spirit and in empirical reach. Both assume, unlike the other approaches reviewed above, that responsive predicates always apply to a set of propositions rather than a single proposition. The difference is that in the inquisitive approach, declarative and interrogative complements are uniformly treated as denoting sets of propositions, while in the inverse reductive approach, a declarative complement is in principle taken to denote a single proposition, but when combined with a responsive predicate, this proposition p must be type-shifted into the singleton set { p } .

As far as responsive predicates go, then, the two approaches are difficult if not impossible to tease apart. 14 The approaches do differ, however, in their take on anti-rogative predicates like believe and hope . In the inverse-reductive approach, these predicates are lexically specified to select for complements that denote a single proposition rather than a set of propositions, which accounts for the fact that they license declarative complements but not interrogative ones. In the inquisitive approach, this option is not available: since declarative and interrogative complements are taken to have the same semantic type, the selectional restrictions of rogative and anti-rogative predicates cannot be accounted for in terms of a type mismatch. 15

At first sight, this may seem a point in favor of the inverse reductive approach. But the issue is more subtle. After all, for the account sketched above to have any explanatory value it has to be supplemented with independent reasons to assume that predicates like believe , hope , and assert select for complements denoting a single proposition while closely related predicates like know , predict , and announce select for complements denoting sets of propositions. Moreover, in the inquisitive approach, even if the selectional restrictions of rogative and anti-rogative predicates cannot be accounted for in terms of mismatching semantic types, they could possibly be explained in other ways, based on independently observable properties of the relevant predicates.

Recent work has explored both routes. On the one hand, Uegaki ( 2015a ) has attempted to provide independent motivation for the assumption that predicates like believe select for complements denoting a single proposition while predicates like know select for complements denoting sets of propositions. However, Theiler et al. ( 2018 ) point out several problems for this proposal. On the other hand, Theiler et al. ( 2017 , 2019 ), Mayr ( 2017 ), and Uegaki and Sudo ( 2017 ) have shown that it is possible to account for the selectional restrictions of believe , hope , and many other anti-rogative (as well as rogative) predicates in terms of independently observable properties of these predicates. They suggest that the relevant property of believe is that it is neg-raising (Mayr, 2017 ; Theiler et al., 2017 , 2019 ; Zuber, 1982 ), while the relevant property of hope is that it is a non-veridical preferential predicate (Uegaki & Sudo, 2017 ). 16

The debate is not settled at this point. Some anti-rogative predicates are neither neg-raising nor non-veridical preferential (e.g., speech act predicates like assert and deny ) and therefore remain to be accounted for under the inquisitive approach (though see Grimshaw, 2018 , for a proposal that seems compatible with the approach). On the other hand, it may be possible after all to justify for at least some anti-rogative predicates that they select for complements that denote a single proposition. Addressing these open issues seems to offer a promising route toward establishing which of the approaches to question embedding is ultimately most appealing.

Further Reading

There are a number of excellent recent survey articles and monographs on the semantics of questions, each focusing on slightly different aspects. Some of them are listed below, in chronological order.

Groenendijk and Stokhof ( 1997 ) provide a thorough review of the literature up to 1997 , focusing on partition semantics but also supplying an in-depth discussion of the epistemic-imperative approach (Åqvist, 1965 ; Hintikka, 1976 , 1983 ) and the treatment of questions in speech act theory (Searle, 1969 ; Vanderveken, 1990 ).

Ginzburg ( 2010 ) supplements Groenendijk and Stokhof’s survey listed above in the second edition of the Handbook of Logic and Language . It provides a concise overview of several analyses of questions not explicitly discussed here, including the inferential erotetic logic of Wiśniewski ( 2001 , 2013 ), the treatment of questions in modal logic by Nelken and Francez ( 2002 ) and Nelken and Shan ( 2006 ), the dialogue-based approach of Ginzburg ( 1996 , 2012 ) and Roberts ( 1996 ), the SDRT-based approach of Asher and Lascarides ( 1998 ), and the treatment of questions in dynamic epistemic logic developed by van Benthem and Minică ( 2009 , 2012 ). For a further development of the latter, incorporating insights from inquisitive semantics, see Ciardelli and Roelofsen ( 2015 ) and Ciardelli ( 2016b ).

Krifka ( 2011 ) provides an overview of alternative semantics, partition semantics, an early version of inquisitive semantics, and the structured meanings approach. Krifka discusses not only the semantics of questions but also their syntactic and prosodic properties, supplying examples from a wide range of languages.

Wiśniewski ( 2015 ) provides an extensive overview of logical theories of questions, with particular emphasis on inferential erotetic logic.

Ciardelli ( 2016b ) offers an in-depth investigation of the logical foundations of inquisitive semantics and also provides detailed comparisons with other logical approaches to questions.

Dekker et al. ( 2016 ), besides offering an overview of proposition-set theories and the structured meanings approach, also reviews some specific issues in current research concerning identity questions, domain presuppositions of which -questions, pair-list questions, quantificational variability, and the selectional restrictions of clause-embedding predicates. Moreover, they discuss connections between partition semantics and decision theory (van Rooij, 2003 ) and dynamic implementations of partition semantics (e.g., Groenendijk, 1999 ; Hulstijn, 1997 ; Jäger, 1996 ).

Dayal ( 2016 ) provides a book-length survey of work on questions in the alternative semantics tradition. It pays much attention to the syntax-semantics interface, viewed from a cross-linguistic perspective.

Cross and Roelofsen ( 2018 ) provide a concise overview of proposition-set theories, the structured meanings approach, as well as the analysis of questions as part of the process of scientific inquiry in Philosophy of Science.

Ciardelli et al. ( 2018 ) provides a book-length introduction to inquisitive semantics, as well as a detailed comparison with alternative semantics and partition semantics.

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1. Besides serving as arguments of certain predicates, questions can also function as adjuncts in so-called unconditional statements, exemplified in (i) below:

⤴ For reasons of space, such constructions will not be discussed here. The interested reader is referred to Rawlins ( 2013 ), Ciardelli ( 2016a ), and Bledin ( 2018 ).

2. The view presented here on the landscape of semantic theories of questions has developed through close collaboration over the last 10 years with Maria Aloni, Ivano Ciardelli, Donka Farkas, Jeroen Groenendijk, and Nadine Theiler. In particular, section 2 draws on Ciardelli ( 2017 ); Ciardelli, Groenendijk, and Roelofsen ( 2018 ); Roelofsen and Farkas ( 2015 ) and Section 3 on Theiler, Roelofsen, and Aloni ( 2017 , 2018 , 2019 ). Further, I am very grateful to Justin Bledin and an anonymous reviewer for detailed comments on a previous version of the article, and to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the European Research Council (ERC, grant agreement number 680220) for financial support.

3. The transition from partition semantics to inquisitive semantics involved two intermediate steps. First, in the 1990s, partition semantics was given a dynamic twist (Groenendijk, 1999 ; Hulstijn, 1997 ; Jäger, 1996 ). This, in turn, led to the first-generation inquisitive semantics framework developed in Mascarenhas ( 2009 ) and Groenendijk ( 2009 ). For reasons of space, these are not discussed here; see Ciardelli et al. ( 2018 , ch. 9).

4. For critical discussion of some concrete notions of entailment that may be introduced in alternative semantics, see Roelofsen ( 2013 ) and Ciardelli, Roelofsen, and Theiler ( 2017 ).

5. It should be noted that there is no universal agreement among alternative semantics-based theories that (15) – (17) should be associated with the same set of propositions. For instance, Biezma and Rawlins ( 2012 ) associate the polar question in (15) with a singleton set containing only the proposition that the door is open, while they associate (16) with a set containing both the proposition that the door is closed and the proposition that the door is open. It is unclear, however, how this choice could be motivated on principled grounds. Certainly, the proposition that the door is closed would seem to constitute a possible answer to (15) as much as it does to (16) .

6. We will concentrate in this subsection on the context-sensitivity of resolution conditions, but essentially the same observations could be made for (exhaustive) answerhood conditions.

7. For reasons of space we restrict our attention here to theories that are couched in possible worlds semantics. Theories based on other frameworks, such as situation semantics (e.g., Ginzburg, 1995; Ginzburg & Sag, 2000 ), typically also assume a type distinction between interrogative and declarative complements.

8. A similar argument was made by Groenendijk and Stokhof ( 1984 , p. 94) against the reductive theory of Karttunen ( 1977 ). Elliott et al.’s argument, however, is more explicit and targets reductive approaches in general rather than only Karttunen’s specific theory.

9. Roberts ( 2018 ) and Uegaki and Roelofsen ( 2018 ) discuss other phenomena which can be accounted for on the inverse reductive approach but not on the reductive approach or the twin relations theory. For reasons of space, we cannot discuss these phenomena in detail here.

10. The idea to treat declaratives and interrogatives uniformly actually goes farther back, at least to Hamblin ( 1973 , p. 48). However, Hamblin was exclusively concerned with root clauses; he did not explicitly consider declarative and interrogative complements , let alone the repercussions of a uniform treatment of complements for the analysis of predicates that take such complements as their argument.

11. In view of this prediction, George actually classifies partition theory as a reductive theory. This classification, however, blurs the fact that Groenendijk and Stokhof ( 1984 , pp. 93–94) themselves very explicitly argued against the reductive approach—understood as one that takes declarative and interrogative complements to be of different types and derives the interrogative-embedding interpretation of responsive predicates from their declarative-embedding interpretation. Instead, they chose to pursue a uniform approach. The classification adopted here, depicted in Figure 2 , is a refinement of Groenendijk and Stokhof’s classification, distinguishing various non-uniform approaches that did not yet exist in 1984.

12. To exemplify, under an intermediate exhaustive reading “John knows which squares are blue” is true just in case (i) of all squares which are in fact blue, John knows that they are blue, and (ii) of all other squares, John does not falsely believe that they are blue. Yet another possible reading, called the weakly exhaustive reading, has also been suggested in the literature (e.g., Beck & Rullmann, 1999 ; Heim, 1994 ). However, the existence of such readings remains controversial. See George ( 2013b ) for discussion.

13. A possible concern for inverse-reductive and uniform theories that we have not discussed explicitly is that they do not make any direct predictions as to how the interrogative-embedding interpretations of responsive predicates are related to their declarative-embedding interpretations (George, 2011 ; Spector & Egré, 2015 ). Proper discussion of this subtle issue is beyond the scope of this survey. For a defense of the uniform and inverse-reductive theories, we refer to Theiler et al. ( 2018 ).

14. There are some differences in implementation between the accounts of Uegaki ( 2015b ) and Theiler et al. ( 2018 ) which result in somewhat different predictions for certain responsive predicates. But these differences in implementation are not forced by the general approaches that the two accounts instantiate. Thus, the predictions that arise from these implementational choices cannot be used to tease the two approaches apart in general. See Theiler et al. ( 2018 ) for further discussion.

15. Note that in the inverse reductive approach, the selectional restrictions of rogative predicates cannot be accounted for in terms of a type mismatch either, since it is assumed that the denotation of a declarative complement, i.e., a proposition , can always be shifted into the singleton set , which is of the same type as an interrogative complement denotation.

16. A recent initiative that is likely to spur many further contributions to this line of work is the development of large-scale data sets concerning the selectional restrictions and other semantic and syntactic properties of clause-embedding predicates (White & Rawlins, 2016 , 2017 ).

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