Why Even Ask? On the Pragmatics of Questions and the Semantics of Answers by Elena Guerzoni M.A. Philosophy Universith degli Studi di Milano 1997 Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology truly 2003 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY © 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved. OCT 0 6 2003 LIBRARIES Signature of Author: ................. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Certified by: ............ Irene Heim Professor of Linguistics Thesis Supervisor Accepted by:......... ..................... Alec Marantz Professor of Linguistics Head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy ARCHIVES Why Even Ask? On the Pragmatics of Questions and the Semantics of Answers by Elena Guerzoni Submi.ted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on July 2 3rd in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Abstract This work investigates the semantics-pragmatics and syntax-pragmatics interface of interrogatives, focusing on the effect of presupposition-triggering expressions like even and Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). In exploring these cases, I aim is to contribute new empirical evidence and theoretical insight pertinent to the general issue of how presuppositions project in interrogative environments. Although the phenomenon of presuppositions has received considerable attention in previous work, very little is undeirstood about how precisely presuppositions project in the domain of questions. My main goal is to establish what processes generate presuppositions in questions, starting from what we know about the semantics of questions and about the contribution of expressiol:s introducing presuppositions in declaratives. The strategy I pursue in this investigation consists in looking at cases where presuppositional material affects the interpretation of a question in ways that go beyond the mere introduction of a presupposition. Even and certain NPIs (so called 'minimizers') provide a rich and constrained testing ground in this sense, as they can be exploited to signal that a questioning act is meant to be biased towards a negative answer. This thesis argues that this otherwise puzzling property of questions with minimizers and even can be understood as a product of (i) the way the presuppositions of even project in a question and affect the question denotation; and (ii) the way general pragmatic principles governing what it means to ask a question regulate how the resulting denotation can be used by speakers in a given context. More specifically I show that the anomalous properties of biased questions with even are the product of the presuppositions even introduces in their possible answers and the felicity of these answers in a given context. The general conclusion this result allows me to draw is that a theory of projection in questions must reduce their presuppositions to answerability conditions of a question in a context. The theory of bias and presuppositions of questions developed in this thesis leads to a number of interesting implications regarding on the one hand even and its variants across languages and, on the other hand, the semantics and syntax of constituent questions. Thesis Supervisor: Irene Heim Title: Professor of Linguistics Acknowledgments There is no way I can even imagine having reached the completion of my graduate studies at MIT and of this dissertation in particular if it wasn't for the generous help I received from the people I will mention here. Their stimulating advice, support and friendship have made the entire experience of writing this thesis not only endurable but also often very pleasant and exiting. First among all, I wish to thank the four members of my thesis committee: Irene Heim, Kai von Fintel Danny Fox and Utpal Lahiri. Irene and Kai definitely made the deepest intellectual impact on my Graduate education ever since, back in my first year at MIT, I took their Introduction to Semantics class. Irene and Kai have been since then the most terrific teachers I have ever met. Their classes have been for me the most interesting, clear and engaging; the appointments with them the most fruitful. Both of them always had an extraordinary capacity to see through the most confused expositions of my ideas and helped me see how to develop them more explicitly and precisely, how to test their soundness, how evaluate their implications and how to convey them clearly, honestly and yet convincingly. Over these years, their advice has always been the most helpful and precious at every single stage of my work and their support the most encouraging. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Irene for having been an incredibly generous advisor for the entire duration of my graduate studies at MIT. I can hardly start enumerating the reasons why I feel so extremely fortunate and privileged to be her student. Irene never missed an opportunity to find for me a word of encouragement. The sharp, careful, precise and extremely detailed comments on my research I received from her and her fair evaluation of my ideas have always been a fundamental source of motivation and help for improving my work and my teaching in every single respect. What Irene taught me goes well beyond formal semantics or even linguistics for that matter. Her incredible commitment to teaching, her loyalty to the field and to the scientific enterprise, her honesty, generosity, fairness and respect towards students and colleges will always be a model for me. I am happy to know that people like her exist, in this field and in general. I am very lucky that also Kai has been advising me ever since he was a member of my generals papers committee. Like Irene, Kai never missed any of my practice conference and job talks, read just about everything I wrote and in all these occasions he had tremendously knowledgeable and insightful comments to offer. Talking to him helped me enormously to improve my work, my teaching, my writing, my presentational skills and many times even my mood. Kai also helped me see how important it is to be able to recognize and be confident in the contribution of my own work and still receive comments and criticisms in the most positive and constructive way. I am especially grateful to Kay for the incredible intellectual and emotional support he provided me with during my job search and my thesis writing. Utpal's writing on questions and on Negative Polarity has been the greatest source of inspiration for this thesis. In the Spring of 2002, when Utpal was teaching here at MIT, I had the fortune to talk to him about my thoughts on rhetorical questions and minimizers. I feel much honored that he has been interested in my work since then and very glad that he accepted to be on my thesis committee. Ever since, Utpal put at my disposal his incredible knowledge through his careful comments. I am very lucky I had the opportunity to work with Danny Fox. Danny has always understood the gist of any of my ideas, located their contribution within a bigger picture, expressed intelligent criticisms and asked me the hardest questions. Talking to Danny also often forced me seeing things from perspectives I had not even imagined. While, at first, I found this exhausting and at times demoralizing, I soon realized how helpful it was for clarifying and organizing my own thoughts and my writing and for finding the courage, despite my own natural resistance to this, to entertain more radical and unconventional hypotheses. Our discussions have probably represented the most intellectually provoking and yet stimulating stages of this work. A heart felt thank you to Gennaro Chierchia for eleven years of continuous encouragement, precious advice and generous friendship. Gennaro introduced to me the world of Linguistics in such a stimulating and exiting way to make it impossible for me to resist the temptation of wishing to become myself a linguist one day. In addition, without Gennaro's trust in my work I would probably not even dared to apply to the program. He made my intense and enriching experience at MIT possible by patiently helping me even with the tedious intricacies of the application process and by guiding me, yet without any pressure, in my decision to come to the US. Since then he never deprived me of his friendly and helpful support. I am tremendously grateful to Morris Halle for accepting to help me with my phonology and morphology generals paper four years ago. Morris tried to patiently educate me, read an uncountable number of drafts of my paper, helped me improving each single one of them and supported my project with incredible enthusiasm. Each and every appointment with Morris gave me a boost of motivation, encouragement and optimism (besides phonology, of course). During nights like this one, very few things have kept me awake: A mug full of cold coffee, a smoking ashtray and Morris command on my mind: "Elena, don't give up!". Even if what he taught me didn't make it directly into this dissertation, if tomorrow this thesis is filed and I catch my flight it is for a good part due Morris. Various people, besides my thesis committee, helped me with this work on even in question over the last two years. What I learnt from Bernhard Schwarz about even and from Yael Sharvit about wh- questions has been of great help; thanks to both of them for the time they spent sharing with me their precious expertise in such complicated areas of semantics. Thanks also to Scott Shank for talking to me about his exiting discoveries about Samish only. This work also benefited a lot from occasional conversations with Rajesh Batt, David Beaver, Silvan Bormberger, Daniel Biring, Gennaro Chierchia, Noam Chomsky, Sabine Iatridou, William Ladusaw, Roumyana Pancheva, David Pesetsky, Norvin Richards, Yael Sharvit, and Barry Shein.