Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
True to Form: Rising and Falling Declaratives as Questions in English

True to Form: Rising and Falling Declaratives as Questions in English

Gunlogson, Christine

Hardcover

Series: Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics

Linguistics

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0415967813
ISBN13: 9780415967815
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Jul 3 2003
Pages: 124
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.28 Depth: 9.32
Language: English

This book is concerned with the meaning and use of two kinds of declarative sentences:

1) It's raining?
2) It's raining.

The difference between (1) and (2) is intonational: (1) has a final rise--indicated by the question mark--while (2) ends with a fall.

Christine Gunlogson's central claim is that the meaning and use of both kinds of sentences must be understood in terms of the meaning of their defining formal elements, namely declarative sentence type and rising versus falling intonation. Gunlogson supports that claim through an investigation of the use of declaratives as questions. On one hand, Gunlogson demonstrates that rising and falling declaratives share an aspect of conventional meaning attributable to their declarative form, distinguishing them both from the corresponding polar interrogative (Is it raining?) and constraining their use as questions. On the other hand, since (1) and (2) constitute a minimal pair, differing only in intonation, systematic differences in character and function between them--in particular, the relative naturalness of (1) as a question compared to (2) --must be located in the contrast between the fall and the rise.

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

Linguistics

View All