Section 1 Questions 1
1. Preliminary
In common parlance, the term question is used in at least three different ways,
which, in order to avoid misunderstanding, will be distinguished terminologically
in this chapter. First of all, the term may be used to refer to a particular type of
sentences, characterized (in English) by word order, intonation, question mark, the
occurrence of interrogative pronouns. In the sequel such sentences will be referred
to by the term interrogative sentences, or interrogatives for short. Another way of
using the term question is to refer to the speech act that is typically performed in
uttering interrogative sentences, i.e., to denote a request to an addressee to provide
the speaker with certain information, a request to answer the question. The phrase
interrogative act will be used to refer to such speech acts. An interrogative act can
be described as the act of asking a question. In this description a third use is made
of the term question, viz., the one in which it refers to the ‘thing’ which is being
asked, and which, as a consequence, may be (partially) answered. This object can
be viewed as the semantic content, or sense, of an interrogative. In what follows,
the term question will be reserved exclusively for this latter use. Of course, several
people have doubted that there are such things as questions in this restricted sense
of the word. To establish that there are, and to argue that they constitute the
primary domain for a logical and semantical theory is one of the main aims of this
chapter.
It should be noted at the outset that although questions are typically asked and
answered, one can also do a lot of other things with them: one can discuss them,
wonder about them, formulate them, etc. Such acts are typically reported by in-
dicative sentences. Hence questions are not exclusively tied to either interrogative
sentences, or to the speech act of asking a question. Note furthermore that an in-
terrogative sentence need not always be used to ask a question, i.e., to perform an
interrogative act, witness so-called ‘rethorical questions’. And questions can also be
asked by other means than through the use of interrogative sentences. Example:
‘Please, tell me why there is something rather than nothing.’ Or: ‘I hereby request
you to let me know why there is something rather than nothing.’ Similar observa-
tions pertain to answers, by the way: an answer may, but need not be expressed
by an indicative sentence. So-called ‘rethorical questions’ are not interrogative but
assertive acts, and are often used to formulate an answer to a question.
Be that as it may, the relation between interrogatives and questions is obviously
more than coincidental: in reality it is pretty hard to ask questions without using
interrogatives at some points. And likewise, answering a question without the use
of indicatives seems not to be the default case. A proper theory of the meaning and
use of interrogatives should account for this.
Just like indicative sentences, interrogatives come in two forms: on their own,
and embedded. The former are often referred to as ‘stand alone’ interrogatives.
Note that in the examples just given, in which a question is asked by means of a
sentence in the imperative mood or in the indicative mood, rather than by the use
of a proper interrogative, embedded interrogatives occurred. If it is assumed that
both stand alone and embedded interrogatives express questions, then questions are