Argument wh-questions and implications in Swedish

Författare

Roberta Colonna Dahlman

Redaktör

Johan Brandtler
David Håkansson
Stefan Huber
Eva Klingvall

Summary, in English

In this paper, I discuss the following questions:

- What kind of implication arises from an argument wh-question?

- What kind of implication arises from a clefted argument wh-question in Swedish?

- Is there any difference in Swedish between clefted and non-clefted argument wh-questions with regard to the implications of existence they give rise to?

I argue that both types of argument wh-questions in Swedish, clefted and non-clefted, give rise to the same kind of pragmatic implication and that the choice between clefted and non-clefted form does not depend on a difference in semantic content, but is, in most cases, determined by the kind of propositional attitude held by the speaker. In particular, I argue that every wh-question requires some way in which the questioner, the one asking a wh-question, is cognitively related to the truth of some proposition. Moreover, I show that clefted argument wh-questions are preferred in Swedish when the speaker holds a very strong commitment to the truth of the proposition.

Avdelning/ar