Abstract
In this paper I discuss some of the implications of viewing questions rigorously in the light of Austin’s conditions for performatives. I argue that this cannot be done without overt reference to the speaker’s knowledge state. First I briefly review how questions as interrogatives have been dealt with by linguists since Bolinger 1957. Next I comment on Austin’s theory of performatives in relation to questions and briefly compare his main points to those of Searle. I then discuss a number of sentences and contexts in support of my analysis of questions as epistemic requests. In a futher section I comment on the disagreement between Belnap and Åquist as it relates to this paper. The final part reviews the main points.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Ammann, Hermann: 1928, Die menschliche Rede. Sprachphilosophische Untersuchungen. I I. Teil: Der Satz. Lahr, Schauenburg.
Anderson, Stephen R. & Paul Kiparsky (eds.), 1973, A Festschrift for Morris Halle. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc.
Åqvist, Lennart: 1965, A New Approach to the Logical Theory of Interrogatives. Part I. Analysis. Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell.
Austin, John L.: 1965, How to Do Things with Words. New York, Oxford University Press.
Baker, Carl Leroy: 1970, ‘Notes on the description of English questions: the role of an abstract question morpheme’, Foundations of Language 6, 197–219.
Belnap, Nuel D. Jr.: 1969, ‘Åqvist’s corrections-accumulating question-sequences’. In Davis et al. (eds.) 1969. 122–34.
Belnap, Nuel D. Jr. and T. B. Steel: 1969, Erotetic Logic, Dittoed.
Bolinger, Dwight L.: 1957, Interrogative Structures of American English. Publication of the American Dialect Society 28. University, Alabama, University of Alabama Press.
Davis, J.W., D.J. Hockney, and W.K. Wilson (eds.): 1969, Philosophical Logic. Dordrecht, Reidel Publishing Co.
Fraser, Bruce: 1973, ‘On accounting for illocutionary forces’. In Anderson & Kiparsky (eds.) 1973. 287–307.
Gardiner, Sir Alan: 1951, The Theory of Speech and Language. 2nd ed. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Garfinkel, Harold: 1967, Studies of Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Gordon, David and George Lakoff: 1972, ‘Conversational postulates’. Papers from the 7th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago, Chicago Linguistic Society, 63–84.
Grice, H. P.: 1967, ‘Logic and Conversation’. Unpublished William James Lectures, Harvard University.
The Logic of Conversation’. Manuscript.
Harris, Zeilig S.: 1964, The Elementary Transformations. Prepublication Copy. University of Pennsylvania Transformations and Discourse Analysis. Papers, No. 54. 1968, Mathematical Structures of Language. Sydney, Interscience Publishers.
Hermann, Eduard: 1942, ‘Probleme der Frage. I & II. Teil’, Nachrichten von derAkademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse. Fachgruppe 3, neue Folge, Band 2, nos. 6 & 7.
Jacobs, R. A. and P. S. Rosenbaum (eds.): 1970, Readings in English Transformational Grammar. Waltham, Mass., Blaisdell.
Jespersen, Otto: 1965, The Philosophy of Grammar. New York, Norton & Co.
Katz, Jerrold and Paul Postal: 1964, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
Lees. Robert B.: 1960, Review of Bolinger 1957. Word 16, 119–25.
Moravcsik, Edith A.: 1971, ‘Some cross-linguistic generalizations about yes—no ques-tions and their answers’, Working Papers on Language Universals 7, 45–193.
Rand, Earl: 1969, The Syntax of Mandarin Interrogatives. University of California Publications in Linguistics 55. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.
Ross, John Robert: 1970, ‘On declarative sentences’. In Jacobs and Rosenbaum (eds.) 1970. 222–72.
Sadock, Jerrold M.: 1970, ‘Whimperatives’. In Sadock and Vanek (eds.) 1970. 223–38.
Sadock, Jerrold M. and Anthony L. Vanek (eds.): 1970, Studies Presented to Robert B. Lees by his Students. Papers in Linguistics. Monograph Series 1. Edmonton and Champaign, Linguistic, Research, Inc.
Schachter, Paul: 1959, Review of Bolinger 1957, International Journal of American Linguistics 25, 259–65.
Searle, John R.: 1969, Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1978 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lang, R. (1978). Questions as Epistemic Requests. In: Hiż, H. (eds) Questions. Synthese Language Library, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9509-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9509-3_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1035-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9509-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive