About What About: Topicality at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface Justin Bledin & Kyle Rawlins JHU Philosophy & JHU CogSci SALT, May 9, 2021 1 / 34 Main target: English what about, which is highly productive, semantically and pragmatically complex, and has received minimal analytic attention. (1)A: Which trees can you create bonsai from? ( antecedent) B: {What/How} about sequoia? head prejacent • Intrinsic interest: non-sentential construction with an interesting and complex set of uses. Massively underspecified. • Extrinsic interest: prominent in literature on topicality, but largely in secondary role as diagnostic. (Gundel 1974, 1988; Jackendoff 1972; Buring¨ 2003; Ebert et al. 2014; Beaver et al. 2017) • Bonus target: “whataboutism”: (2) (Trump tweet on July 22, 2017) What about all of the Clinton ties to Russia, including Podesta Company, Uranium deal, Russian Reset, big dollar speeches, etc. 2 / 34 About what about, pr´ecis What about XP (i) presupposes an antecedent Question Under Discus- sion/QUD, and (ii) asks a subquestion of the antecedent that is aligned with the denotation of the prejacent XP. • (Question Under Discussion / QUD: Roberts 1996, 2012; Ginzburg 1996; van Kuppevelt 1996; Buring¨ 2003; Beaver & Clark 2008 a.m.o) • Getting the alignment right is complicated. • Our final proposal is implemented using a structured meaning (aka. “functional”) approach to questions (von Stechow 1991; Krifka 2001): what about interacts with the antecedent QUD by (iii) narrowing the QUD’s restriction via the prejacent XP. • What about can trigger QUD accommodation, and (iv) leaves the background of the antecedent question entirely unspecified; in consequence is extremely pragmatically flexible. • In particular, productively allows shifting an accommodating hearer’s QUD. 3 / 34 Plan (i) Background: ‘what about’ and topicality (ii) Data: compositional flexibility (iii) Data: functional heterogeneity (iv) Analysis try 1: local topic analysis (v) Analysis try 2: unstructured aboutness (vi) Analysis try 3: a structured approach (vii)‘ what about’ and whataboutism 4 / 34 Precedents from topicality literature • Gundel’s (1974/1988) diagnostic for the “pragmatic topic” of a subsequent utterance: (3) What about Archie? (Gundel, ex. 46) a. Archie rejected the proposal. b. #It was [ARCHIE]F who rejected the proposal. • What abouts as cues to contrastive topics (Jackendoff 1972; Buring¨ 2003; Beaver et al. 2017): (4)A: Well, what about FRED? What did HE eat? B: [FRED]CT ate the [BEANS]F. (Jackendoff, ex. 6.145) (5)A: Well, what about the BEANS? Who ate THEM? B: [FRED]F ate the [BEANS]CT. (Jackendoff, ex. 6.146) 5 / 34 Existing proposal: Ebert et al. (2014): reduce aspects of left-dislocation constructions to “what about” questions, discussed (briefly) in terms of questioning/QUD. In a nutshell, “what about XP?” (i) establishes the prejacent XP as a referential topic (ii) raises a QUD: what propertiesJ K are true of XP ? J K 6 / 34 Compositional flexibility Compositional flexibility puzzle: What about can combine with a very broad range of constituents including DPs, APs, certain TPs, certain CPs, and more. How to account composi- tionally for this generality? • Entity-topic-based accounts focus on only a small piece of the puzzle (referential DPs). • The head can be either what about or how about, but other wh-items aren’t supported (construction-like or idiom-like): (6) a. fWhat/Howg about Joanna? b.* fWho/When/Why/Whereg about Joanna? • Just about anything can show up in the prejacent, both nominal and clausal. 7 / 34 Compositional flexibility: non-clausal prejacents Easy way to generate examples: let the antecedent be a question that targets the prejacent constituent as a short answer. (This is a clue...) (7)A: Who should we invite to the party? B: How about fJoanna/everybody/nobodyg? (DP prejacents) (8)A: When should we meet? B: What about fon Tuesday/before the partyg? (PP prejacents) (9)A: What color should we paint the room? B: What about green? (AP prejacent) (10)A: What speed should I drive? B: How about slowly? (AdvP prejacent) (11)A: What should we do this summer? B: How about hike the Pacific Coast Trail? (VP prejacent) B0: How about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail? (gerundive/non-finite prejacent) 8 / 34 Compositional flexibility: clausal prejacents • It’s possible to use the ‘short answer’ strategy to force some full CP prejacents (and to some degree non-finite forms): (12)A: What surprised you the most? B: How about that we won? (that-clause prejacent) • If -clauses are also ok for some speakers, leading to readings similar to what if questions: (Bledin & Rawlins, 2019) (13)A: Who could possibly be the murderer? B: What (about) if the butler lied about his alibi? • A noticeable gap: sentential tensed clauses (i.e. ‘full answers’) are not good as prejacents: (Culicover & Jackendoff, 2005) (14)A: What surprised you the most? B: *How about we won? 9 / 34 Clausal prejacents (cont.) (15)A: Who could possibly be the murderer? We’ve ruled everyone out! B: *What about the butler lied about his alibi? (16)A: Would you like a drink? (after Culicover & Jackendoff 2005 ch. 7 ex. 11d) B: Yeah, how/what about a scotch? B0: *Yeah, how/what about I would like a scotch? Exception to the gap: can use futurate present TPs as prejacent (Copley, 2009, 2008, 2014; Bochnak, 2019), but only with how about: (17)A: What color should we paint the room? B: How about we paint it green?) B0: *What about we paint it green? 10 / 34 Compositional flexibility, recap The XP prejacent in a what about can take a wide range of syntactic forms, with the major exception of regular tensed clauses. 11 / 34 Functional heterogeneity Functional heterogeneity puzzle What about moves can serve a wide variety of discourse purposes includ- ing suggesting a plan in response to a practical question, challenging an interlocutor’s proposal, elaborating on prior lines of discussion, and more. How to interpret what about to account for this pragmatic flexibility? • Suggestive uses. What about questions can be used to make a suggestion. Arguably: tentatively offer a complete or partial answer to the current QUD. (18) Where should we go for dinner? fWhat/Howg about The Brewer’s Art? (19) Which trees can you create bonsai from? What about sequoia? (20)A: Why do my roommates keep moving out? B: What about because you never clean up after yourself? 12 / 34 Functional heterogeneity (cont.) • Contrastive uses. What abouts can be “contrastive questions” asked to redirect a stream of inquiry by laterally shifting the QUD: (21)A: What did Mary eat? (ex. 4 from Beaver et al. 2017) B: [She]CT ate [pie]F. A: Well, what about Fred? What did he eat? B: [Fred]CT ate the [beans]F. (What did Mary eat? is a subquestion of Who ate what?, which is a superquestion of What did Fred eat?) (Many cases of whataboutism fall in this category.) • Challenging uses. (Bledin & Rawlins’s 2020 “resistance moves”): (22)A: Kenny G is the GOAT of saxophone. (‘GOAT’ = Greatest Of All Time) B: Umm, what about Coltrane? (23)A: Open the window! B: What about the mosquitos? 13 / 34 Functional heterogeneity (cont.) • Many more uses besides. • When can’t what about be used? Generally not great discourse-initial, though some planning uses are ok: (24) Context: opening sentence of a history lecture. #What about if Napolean had won at Waterloo? (25) How about we go have breakfast at Little Purity Diner? • Often bad in response to direct factual questions. (26)A: What is that fruit you’re eating? B:??What/how about a persimmon? B0: A persimmon. / ??Is it a persimmon? (27)A: What could this fruit possibly be? B: Is it a persimmon? B0: What about a persimmon? Rough generalization: they are about as bad as regular question responses to questions—a highly context-sensitive matter. 14 / 34 Functional heterogeneity, recap What abouts can be used in a wide variety of functions depending on the context of use. Key cases: suggestions, contrastive questioning, chal- lenges. 15 / 34 Analyzing what about: two topical approaches “In the literature on topicality, its discursive effect is often said to be captured by raising the question What about X?, where X is the topical entity. We implement this idea by assuming that the REF act of topic establishment introduces the question ‘What properties are true of X?’ as the current question under discussion.” (Ebert et al. 2014 p. 375) We can extract two (paired) proposals from this: (i) Asking What about XP? establishes the prejacent denotation XP as a new topic( ≈ dref) in the discourse (via REF), drawing hearers’J K attention towards it. (“local topic analysis”; cf. “centering” approaches to pronoun resolution Grosz, Joshi & Weinstein 1983, 1995; Dekker 1994; Bittner 2014) (ii) Asking What about XP? introduces the new QUD/discourse topic: what properties are true of XP ? (“global topic analysis”) J K 16 / 34 Local topic analysis Do we really need a question-based analysis? Pure local topic story: (28) c + pwhat about XPq = c + Topic(XP) This is plausible for many suggestive uses, which might be assimilated (at least to a certain extent) to consider-imperatives: (29)A: Who knew the combination to the safe? B: What about the butler? B0: Well, consider the butler. However, many what abouts, including some suggestive uses, seem to be bona fide questions. 17 / 34 Local topic analysis (cont.) • Applying Sadock’s (1974) tell me and by any chance diagnostics: (30)A: Does this medicine have any side-effects? B: Not in the prescribed dosage. A: OK. But tell me, fwhat about/#considerg when one takes twice the prescribed amount? (31) Does anyone have a car we can borrow? fWhat about/#Considerg Maria, by any chance? • What abouts pattern like regular questions in terms of turn-taking and response-hood: (32)A: How about going for breakfast at Little Purity Diner? (A looks expectantly at B) B: Sure.