**2.2 The problem of ranking and the struggle for escaping carelessness**

Usually, grammars introduce interrogative structures after the affirmative ones.

Queries and Predicate – Argument Relationship 49

ones, is, in my opinion, an unconscious preference shown towards one kind of questions

2. Did Peter win the game? the proper order seems to be the proposed one. But if we

(3) and (4) clearly show that to ask is something which comes first – has a certain priority - in the development of our knowledge, and pushes forward the development of knowledge itself2.

According to the usual classification, interrogative sentences are of two kinds: partial and

The purpose of completive questions is to inquire about the identity of a missing element in the information available to the speaker. The questioned identity may be that of a person

as young as 1;8 are able to respond appropriately (i.e. differentially) to subject and object *wh-*questions (*What hit the book?* Vs. *What did the book hit?*), suggesting early knowledge of (from a generativist

The challenge for generativist account is therefore to explain why, given that knowledge of subjectauxiliary inversion is acquired early (or, indeed, is innate), errors are relatively common among learners of English. […] Most common are **non-inversion** (or **uninversion**) **errors** (e.g. \**What she can eat?* […] where the auxiliary appears in post-subject position. Various types of **auxiliary-doubling errors** are also

Under constructivist approaches, questions are not formed by movement. Rather, questions are independent constructions and undergo the same acquisition process as any other: children begin with rote-learned holophrases (e.g. *What is he doing?; What is he eating?*) and gradually schematize across these to form low-level lexically specific slot-and-frame-patterns (e.g. *What is [THING] [PROCESS]?*). Finally, children analogize across these schemas (or instances of these schemas in the form of actual

The prediction of this account is that children will show effects of lexical-specificity: they will show good performance with question that can be formed using a well-learned schema, but poor performance for questions where a ready-made schema is unavailable and a more creative strategy is acquired. […] Rowland and Pine (2000: 164) argue that 'the child lexically specific knowledge is likely to centre round wh-word + auxiliary combinations, rather than auxiliary + subject combinations' [apparently, completive rather than oriented questions]. This is because the range of *wh*-words and auxiliaries is relatively narrow (perhaps especially in speech to young children), whereas the range of subjects is

Concluding their paragraphs about the acquisition of questions, Ambridge and Lieven propose some solutions for both the generativist approach and the constructivist one, such as "to posit some role for lexical learning" in the first case, or to specify "the precise nature of the early schemas themselves", "to explain precisely how children move from lexically-specific construction schemas to a fully abstract *wh*-

Evidently, such an interesting "theoretical contrasting" should be developed not only about English as an object-language, but also about highly typologically differentiated languages. 2 The skill of asking questions seems typical of humans and cannot be learned by primates, not even by

general, completive (wh-questions) or oriented (yes-no questions)3.

observed, particularly for negative questions (e.g. \**What does she doesn't like*?) […]

utterances) to yield fully abstract constructions (e.g. *Wh-word AUX SUBJECT VERB?*).

those who were trained to learn human languages: see Jordania (2006).

only, the so-called "oriented" ones.

1. Peter won the game

3. Who won the game? or 4. What did Peter win?

In a case such as:

consider

perspective) inversion.

question construction".

potentially infinite." (Ambridge, Lieven, 2011).

3 See, among others, Gobber, 1999, Weber 1993.

Such an expository and explanatory order seems to suggest the idea of a sort of precedence in ranking of so-called declarative or assertive sentences vs. interrogative and also negative ones.

Is this ranking the right one?


#### **2.3 Different kinds of questions: yes-no questions vs. completive questions, closed vs. open questions**

In any case, what traditionally has contributed to establishing such a questionable ranking, or the idea that interrogative structures are modifications, transformations1 of declarative

<sup>1</sup> Cf. (Chomsky, 1957) and beyond, minimalism included (Chomsky, 1995), for his transformational grammar.

Indeed, "Under generativist approaches, non-subject questions - like passives – are formed by movement. However, whereas passives are formed by NP-movement, questions are formed by movement of the auxiliary from I to C (**subject-auxiliary inversion**) and - for *wh-*questions – by movement of the *wh-*word from within VP to SPEC CP (*wh-***movement**) […]. Interestingly – observe Ben Ambridge and Elena V.M. Lieven – a preferential-looking study […] has shown that children aged

ones, is, in my opinion, an unconscious preference shown towards one kind of questions only, the so-called "oriented" ones.

In a case such as:

48 Semantics – Advances in Theories and Mathematical Models

Such an expository and explanatory order seems to suggest the idea of a sort of precedence in ranking of so-called declarative or assertive sentences vs. interrogative and also negative

a. On the linguistic/grammatical side, it seems more a matter of didactical priorities than of intrinsic communicative dynamics. In fact, answers follow questions. Furthermore, both in interrogative and in declarative moods negation comes as a meta-operation, something which intervenes upon an already imposed structure, a super-imposed

b. Another trend in favour of such ranking has been the long-held attitude in philosophy of considering only statements as sentences *par excellence*. Their excellence is due to their relationship to truth. They were known as *orationes perfectae*, both in the sense of accomplished, (and therefore complete), utterances, and in the sense of being able to reach the top, the truth. Austin calls such an overestimation of declarative sentences compared to all other kinds of sentences a 'descriptive fallacy': "To overlook these possibilities in the way once common is called the 'descriptive' fallacy". Which possibilities? "It was for too long the assumption of philosophers – Austin claims – that the business of a 'statement' can only be to 'describe' some states of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which it must do either truly or falsely. … But now, in recent years, many things which would once have been accepted without question as 'statements' by both philosophers and grammarians have been scrutinized with new care. … First came the view … that a statement (of fact) ought to be 'verifiable', and this led to the view that many 'statements' are only what may be called pseudo-statements. First and most obviously, many 'statements' were shown to be … strictly nonsense… so that it was natural to go on to ask, as a second stage, whether many apparent pseudo-statements really set out to be 'statements' at all. … for example, 'ethical propositions' are perhaps intended, solely or partly, to evince emotion or to prescribe conduct or to influence it in special ways. … It has come to be seen that many special perplexing words embedded in apparently descriptive statements do not serve to indicate some specially odd additional feature in the reality reported, but to indicate (not to report) the circumstances in which the statement is made or reservations to which it is subject or the way in which it is to be taken and the like."(Austin, 1962). We shall return to this

**2.3 Different kinds of questions: yes-no questions vs. completive questions, closed** 

In any case, what traditionally has contributed to establishing such a questionable ranking, or the idea that interrogative structures are modifications, transformations1 of declarative

1 Cf. (Chomsky, 1957) and beyond, minimalism included (Chomsky, 1995), for his transformational

Indeed, "Under generativist approaches, non-subject questions - like passives – are formed by movement. However, whereas passives are formed by NP-movement, questions are formed by movement of the auxiliary from I to C (**subject-auxiliary inversion**) and - for *wh-*questions – by movement of the *wh-*word from within VP to SPEC CP (*wh-***movement**) […]. Interestingly – observe Ben Ambridge and Elena V.M. Lieven – a preferential-looking study […] has shown that children aged

ones.

Is this ranking the right one?

structure.

fallacy shortly.

**vs. open questions** 

grammar.


(3) and (4) clearly show that to ask is something which comes first – has a certain priority - in the development of our knowledge, and pushes forward the development of knowledge itself2.

According to the usual classification, interrogative sentences are of two kinds: partial and general, completive (wh-questions) or oriented (yes-no questions)3.

The purpose of completive questions is to inquire about the identity of a missing element in the information available to the speaker. The questioned identity may be that of a person

Under constructivist approaches, questions are not formed by movement. Rather, questions are independent constructions and undergo the same acquisition process as any other: children begin with rote-learned holophrases (e.g. *What is he doing?; What is he eating?*) and gradually schematize across these to form low-level lexically specific slot-and-frame-patterns (e.g. *What is [THING] [PROCESS]?*). Finally, children analogize across these schemas (or instances of these schemas in the form of actual utterances) to yield fully abstract constructions (e.g. *Wh-word AUX SUBJECT VERB?*).

The prediction of this account is that children will show effects of lexical-specificity: they will show good performance with question that can be formed using a well-learned schema, but poor performance for questions where a ready-made schema is unavailable and a more creative strategy is acquired. […] Rowland and Pine (2000: 164) argue that 'the child lexically specific knowledge is likely to centre round wh-word + auxiliary combinations, rather than auxiliary + subject combinations' [apparently, completive rather than oriented questions]. This is because the range of *wh*-words and auxiliaries is relatively narrow (perhaps especially in speech to young children), whereas the range of subjects is potentially infinite." (Ambridge, Lieven, 2011).

Concluding their paragraphs about the acquisition of questions, Ambridge and Lieven propose some solutions for both the generativist approach and the constructivist one, such as "to posit some role for lexical learning" in the first case, or to specify "the precise nature of the early schemas themselves", "to explain precisely how children move from lexically-specific construction schemas to a fully abstract *wh*question construction".

3 See, among others, Gobber, 1999, Weber 1993.

as young as 1;8 are able to respond appropriately (i.e. differentially) to subject and object *wh-*questions (*What hit the book?* Vs. *What did the book hit?*), suggesting early knowledge of (from a generativist perspective) inversion.

The challenge for generativist account is therefore to explain why, given that knowledge of subjectauxiliary inversion is acquired early (or, indeed, is innate), errors are relatively common among learners of English. […] Most common are **non-inversion** (or **uninversion**) **errors** (e.g. \**What she can eat?* […] where the auxiliary appears in post-subject position. Various types of **auxiliary-doubling errors** are also observed, particularly for negative questions (e.g. \**What does she doesn't like*?) […]

Evidently, such an interesting "theoretical contrasting" should be developed not only about English as an object-language, but also about highly typologically differentiated languages. 2 The skill of asking questions seems typical of humans and cannot be learned by primates, not even by

those who were trained to learn human languages: see Jordania (2006).

Queries and Predicate – Argument Relationship 51

being neither true nor false, disappeared from the philosophical investigations for a long

This happened in spite of the role assigned by Aristoteles himself to wonder: "For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the

A pioneer's exception in introducing questions in logic was Richard Whately's *Elements of Logic* (1826), which included erotetic logic (see now Brozek, 2011), i.e. the logic of questioning. "Every Argument" – he writes – "consists of two parts; that which is *proved*; and that *by means of which* it is proved: the former is called, *before* it is proved, the *question*; *when proved*, the *conclusion* (or *inference*)" (Whately, 1826). Thus questions move inferential activity. Furthermore, Whately devotes two chapters of his work to introducing proper distinctions, the

Such distinctions – warns Whately - allow us to avoid confusion between Verbal and Real Questions. "For to trace any error to its source, will often throw more light on the subject in hand than can be obtained if we rest satisfied with merely detecting and refuting it."(*ibid.*). Such was his reply to George Cambell's *Philosophy of Rhetoric* (1776), where he had "maintained, or rather assumed, that Logic is applicable to Verbal controversy alone". Evidently Whately intended to sweep away those controversies which are merely verbal, in

He states: "*Every* Question that can arise, is in fact a Question whether a certain Predicate is or is not applicable to a certain subject, or *what* Predicate is applicable […]. But sometimes the Question turns on the meaning and extent of the *terms* employed; sometimes on the *things* signified by them. If it be made to appear, therefore, that the opposite sides of a certain Question may be held by persons not differing in their *opinion of the matter* in hand, then that Question may be pronounced Verbal; as depending on the different senses in which they respectively employ the *terms*. If, on the contrary, it appears that they employ the terms in the same sense, but still differ as to the application of one of them to the other, then it may be pronounced that the Question is Real, that they differ as to the opinions they hold of the *things* in Question. […] It is by no means to be supposed that all Verbal Questions are trifling and frivolous; it is often of the highest importance to settle correctly the meaning of a word, either according to ordinary use, or according to the meaning of any particular writer, or class of men; but when Verbal Questions are *mistaken* for Real, much confusion of thought and unprofitable wrangling will be generally the result. […] It is evidently of much importance to keep in mind the above distinctions, in order to avoid, on the one hand, stigmatizing as Verbal controversies, what in reality are not such, merely because the Question turns on the applicability of a certain Predicate to a certain subject; or, on the other hand, falling into the opposite error of mistaking words for things, and judging of men's agreement or disagreement in opinion in every case, merely from their agreement

This connection between judgement and agreement should lead to overcoming the threshold that divides the theoretical and practical sides involved in our subject, questions and queries.

sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe" (*Metaphysics*, Book I).

ignorance of which produces "*undetected* Verbal Questions and fruitless Logomachy".

order to deal just with those which are genuine, real ones.

or disagreement in the terms employed." (Whately, 1826).

**2.5 Performing questions / queries and formalising them** 

time.

('who'), a thing ('what'), a time ('when'), a place ('where'), or a reason ('why'), according to the typical pronominal or adverbial heads of interrogative phrases.

The purpose of oriented questions is to ascertain the truth or falsity of a statement, or at least to make explicit the assent or dissent given by the addressee to the state of affairs under question.

Both completive and oriented questions belong to the so-called "closed" questions, because the task given to the answerer is a rather quick and delimited one. Alternatively, "open" questions are those which cannot be answered in a way correspondent to the structure of the question, i.e. just confirming or disconfirming the set-up orientation, or by just completing the missing constituent. Open questions are those which require an active and long-lasting cooperation by the addressee: the task of answering has to be articulated step by step, and it is not excluded that the goal of a definite answer cannot be achieved. Some well-known or lesser known questions remain open for a long time, even for centuries4.

## **2.4 A larger scale: questions vs. requests**

Beyond these two classes of questions another kind of speech acts needs to be recalled: that of requests. Latin distinguished these two acts at a lexical level: while *petere* means "to ask" for knowledge, *quaerere* means "to ask" in order to obtain something. 'Queries' may just be questions asked in order to obtain/retrieve information.

The distinction between questions and requests always deserves to be taken into consideration, in order to avoid that "intellectualistic" or theoreticist attitude, according to which we just speak for the sake of knowledge. As Austin claimed, with words we do things. Nevertheless we have to bear in mind that sometimes we ask questions instead of requiring something, accomplishing a so-called indirect speech act: e.g., when we ask "are you getting down at the next stop?", when we need to get past to get off the bus.

This whole family of speech acts (asking questions, making requests etc.) was already included by Wittgenstein in his *Philosophical Investigations5* among the (almost innumerable) language games which he claimed needed to be taken into consideration without restricting one's attention to declarative sentences.

It was quite probably "the first" Wittgenstein, i.e. the author of the *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, that Austin had especially (but not exclusively) in mind when he reminded philosophers of the descriptive fallacy. "Grammarians, indeed", - Austin admitted – "have regularly pointed out that not all 'sentences' are [used in making] statements: there are, traditionally, besides (grammarians') statements, also questions and exclamations, and sentences expressing commands or wishes or concessions " (Austin, 1962). In any case, the difficult balance between assertiveness and its counterparts deserves to be put in evidence much earlier, in the roots of Western philosophical tradition. After Plato's sympathetic witnessing of Socrates' midwifing ability, with its connected erotetic method (the art of asking questions), a whole tradition came down to us, according to which apophantic speech only (the term is Aristotelic: declaratory) had to be considered in logic. Questions,

<sup>4</sup> http://www.openquestions.com/

<sup>5 §§ 21-23.</sup> 

50 Semantics – Advances in Theories and Mathematical Models

('who'), a thing ('what'), a time ('when'), a place ('where'), or a reason ('why'), according to

The purpose of oriented questions is to ascertain the truth or falsity of a statement, or at least to make explicit the assent or dissent given by the addressee to the state of affairs under

Both completive and oriented questions belong to the so-called "closed" questions, because the task given to the answerer is a rather quick and delimited one. Alternatively, "open" questions are those which cannot be answered in a way correspondent to the structure of the question, i.e. just confirming or disconfirming the set-up orientation, or by just completing the missing constituent. Open questions are those which require an active and long-lasting cooperation by the addressee: the task of answering has to be articulated step by step, and it is not excluded that the goal of a definite answer cannot be achieved. Some well-known or lesser known questions remain open for a long time, even for centuries4.

Beyond these two classes of questions another kind of speech acts needs to be recalled: that of requests. Latin distinguished these two acts at a lexical level: while *petere* means "to ask" for knowledge, *quaerere* means "to ask" in order to obtain something. 'Queries' may just be

The distinction between questions and requests always deserves to be taken into consideration, in order to avoid that "intellectualistic" or theoreticist attitude, according to which we just speak for the sake of knowledge. As Austin claimed, with words we do things. Nevertheless we have to bear in mind that sometimes we ask questions instead of requiring something, accomplishing a so-called indirect speech act: e.g., when we ask "are

This whole family of speech acts (asking questions, making requests etc.) was already included by Wittgenstein in his *Philosophical Investigations5* among the (almost innumerable) language games which he claimed needed to be taken into consideration without restricting

It was quite probably "the first" Wittgenstein, i.e. the author of the *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, that Austin had especially (but not exclusively) in mind when he reminded philosophers of the descriptive fallacy. "Grammarians, indeed", - Austin admitted – "have regularly pointed out that not all 'sentences' are [used in making] statements: there are, traditionally, besides (grammarians') statements, also questions and exclamations, and sentences expressing commands or wishes or concessions " (Austin, 1962). In any case, the difficult balance between assertiveness and its counterparts deserves to be put in evidence much earlier, in the roots of Western philosophical tradition. After Plato's sympathetic witnessing of Socrates' midwifing ability, with its connected erotetic method (the art of asking questions), a whole tradition came down to us, according to which apophantic speech only (the term is Aristotelic: declaratory) had to be considered in logic. Questions,

you getting down at the next stop?", when we need to get past to get off the bus.

the typical pronominal or adverbial heads of interrogative phrases.

**2.4 A larger scale: questions vs. requests** 

one's attention to declarative sentences.

4 http://www.openquestions.com/

5 §§ 21-23.

questions asked in order to obtain/retrieve information.

question.

being neither true nor false, disappeared from the philosophical investigations for a long time.

This happened in spite of the role assigned by Aristoteles himself to wonder: "For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe" (*Metaphysics*, Book I).

A pioneer's exception in introducing questions in logic was Richard Whately's *Elements of Logic* (1826), which included erotetic logic (see now Brozek, 2011), i.e. the logic of questioning. "Every Argument" – he writes – "consists of two parts; that which is *proved*; and that *by means of which* it is proved: the former is called, *before* it is proved, the *question*; *when proved*, the *conclusion* (or *inference*)" (Whately, 1826). Thus questions move inferential activity. Furthermore, Whately devotes two chapters of his work to introducing proper distinctions, the ignorance of which produces "*undetected* Verbal Questions and fruitless Logomachy".

Such distinctions – warns Whately - allow us to avoid confusion between Verbal and Real Questions. "For to trace any error to its source, will often throw more light on the subject in hand than can be obtained if we rest satisfied with merely detecting and refuting it."(*ibid.*). Such was his reply to George Cambell's *Philosophy of Rhetoric* (1776), where he had "maintained, or rather assumed, that Logic is applicable to Verbal controversy alone". Evidently Whately intended to sweep away those controversies which are merely verbal, in order to deal just with those which are genuine, real ones.

He states: "*Every* Question that can arise, is in fact a Question whether a certain Predicate is or is not applicable to a certain subject, or *what* Predicate is applicable […]. But sometimes the Question turns on the meaning and extent of the *terms* employed; sometimes on the *things* signified by them. If it be made to appear, therefore, that the opposite sides of a certain Question may be held by persons not differing in their *opinion of the matter* in hand, then that Question may be pronounced Verbal; as depending on the different senses in which they respectively employ the *terms*. If, on the contrary, it appears that they employ the terms in the same sense, but still differ as to the application of one of them to the other, then it may be pronounced that the Question is Real, that they differ as to the opinions they hold of the *things* in Question. […] It is by no means to be supposed that all Verbal Questions are trifling and frivolous; it is often of the highest importance to settle correctly the meaning of a word, either according to ordinary use, or according to the meaning of any particular writer, or class of men; but when Verbal Questions are *mistaken* for Real, much confusion of thought and unprofitable wrangling will be generally the result. […] It is evidently of much importance to keep in mind the above distinctions, in order to avoid, on the one hand, stigmatizing as Verbal controversies, what in reality are not such, merely because the Question turns on the applicability of a certain Predicate to a certain subject; or, on the other hand, falling into the opposite error of mistaking words for things, and judging of men's agreement or disagreement in opinion in every case, merely from their agreement or disagreement in the terms employed." (Whately, 1826).

#### **2.5 Performing questions / queries and formalising them**

This connection between judgement and agreement should lead to overcoming the threshold that divides the theoretical and practical sides involved in our subject, questions and queries.

Queries and Predicate – Argument Relationship 53

? (He did it because …)

? (You did it) In so far as we confine our discussion to simple subject predicate propositions, with a singular definite referring term as subject, we can represent the distinctions in the form

F (RP) "*R*" for the referring expression and the capital *P* for the predicating expression." (Searle,

> Future act *A* of *H* Any proposition or propositional function

> > 1. *S* does not know "the answer", i.e., does not know if the proposition is true, or, in the case of the propositional function, does not know the information needed to complete the proposition truly (but see comment below). 2. It is not obvious to both *S* and *H* that *H* will provide the information at that time

> > > without being asked.7

There are two kind of questions (*a*) real questions, (*b*) exam questions. In real questions *S* wants to know (find out) the answer; in exam questions, *S* wants

information from *H*.

to know if *H* knows.

But "Did you do it?", a yes –no question, is represented as

Preparatory 1. *H* is able to do *A*. *S* believes *H*

Comment *Order* and *command* have the additional

*H.* 

the suggestion of this addition to Aldo Frigerio.

Table 1. Types of illocutionary act.

is able to do *A.*

own accord.

 *Request Question* 

2. It is not obvious to both *S* and *H* that *H* will do *A* in the normal course of events of his

Sincerity *S* wants *H* to do *A. S* wants this information.

preparatory rule that *S* must be in a

*Command* probably does not have the 'pragmatic' condition requiring nonobviousness. Furthermore in both, the authority relationship infects the essential condition because the utterance counts as an attempt to get *H* to do *A in virtue of the authority of S over* 

position of authority over *H*.

Essential Counts as an attempt to get *H* to do *A*. Counts as an attempt to elicit this

7 A further preparatory rule should be: "S believes that H knows 'the answer', i.e. if the proposition is true or, in case of propositional function, the element needed to complete the proposition truly". I owe

1969, as the following table).

 Propositional Content

Types of rules

Indeed, Austin plays an important role in opening6 new paths to pragmatics, identifying the character of questions, promises and the like.

"To perform a locutionary act is in general, we may say, also and *eo ipso* to perform an *illocutionary* act, as I propose to call it. To determine what illocutionary act is so performed we must determine in what way we are using the locution: asking or answering a question […] When we perform a locutionary act, we use speech: but in what way precisely are we using it on this occasion? […] These issues penetrate a little but not without confusion into grammar […], but we constantly do debate them, in such terms as whether certain words (a certain locution) *had the force of* a question, or *ought to have been taken as* an estimate and so on. […] I shall refer to […] the doctrine of 'illocutionary forces'" (Austin, 1962).

It was few years later, in 1969, that John Searle published *Speech Acts*. In the very first pages it was stated: "The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence, or even the token of the symbol, word or sentence, but rather the production or issuance of the symbol, word or sentence in the performance of the speech act." (Searle, 1969). " The general form of (many kinds of) illocutionary acts is

F (*p*)

where the variable "F" takes illocutionary force indicating devices as values and "*p*" takes expressions for propositions. We can symbolize different kinds of illocutionary acts in the form, e.g.,

├ (*p*) for assertions ! (*p*) for requests *Pr* (*p*) for promises *W* (*p*) for warnings ? (*p*) for yes – no questions

and so on. Except for yes-no questions the symbolism for questions must represent propositional functions and not complete proposition, because except in yes –no questions the speaker asking a question does not express a complete proposition. Thus, "How many people were at the party?" is represented as

? (*X* number of people were at the party)

"Why did he do it?" is represented as

<sup>6</sup> For truth's sake, the evaluation about who opens what is the result of a historical judgement. To be well informed and impartial, the historians of culture and ideas should open their views towards the global scene: what happens, on the contrary, is too often that different kinds of barriers (linguistic, ideological, due to mutually ignored traditions and so on) forbid such a world-wide view. On our specific subject, a widespread mistake or simply a naiveté is to take the deep and well-known unity of pragmatics belonging to the English-speaking world of analytic philosophy as the very first trend in metalinguistic thought overcoming the gap between theoretic and pragmatic approach, viewing the speaking activity as related not only to the domain of knowledge, but also to that of action. Just confining ourselves to the Western/Central European situation, we shouldn't ignore the old and large stream of German-speaking scholars, who however do not belong to/create an actual common school, such as Bernard Bolzano, Gottlob Frege, Alexius Meinong. They all well understood that questions do not only reveal a lack of something, but also compel their addressees to fill such a gap. See Gobber, 2011.

52 Semantics – Advances in Theories and Mathematical Models

Indeed, Austin plays an important role in opening6 new paths to pragmatics, identifying the

"To perform a locutionary act is in general, we may say, also and *eo ipso* to perform an *illocutionary* act, as I propose to call it. To determine what illocutionary act is so performed we must determine in what way we are using the locution: asking or answering a question […] When we perform a locutionary act, we use speech: but in what way precisely are we using it on this occasion? […] These issues penetrate a little but not without confusion into grammar […], but we constantly do debate them, in such terms as whether certain words (a certain locution) *had the force of* a question, or *ought to have been taken as* an estimate and so on. […] I shall refer to […] the doctrine of 'illocutionary

It was few years later, in 1969, that John Searle published *Speech Acts*. In the very first pages it was stated: "The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence, or even the token of the symbol, word or sentence, but rather the production or issuance of the symbol, word or sentence in the performance of the speech

F (*p*) where the variable "F" takes illocutionary force indicating devices as values and "*p*" takes expressions for propositions. We can symbolize different kinds of illocutionary acts in the

├ (*p*) for assertions ! (*p*) for requests *Pr* (*p*) for promises *W* (*p*) for warnings

and so on. Except for yes-no questions the symbolism for questions must represent propositional functions and not complete proposition, because except in yes –no questions the speaker asking a question does not express a complete proposition. Thus, "How many

? (*X* number of people were at the party)

6 For truth's sake, the evaluation about who opens what is the result of a historical judgement. To be well informed and impartial, the historians of culture and ideas should open their views towards the global scene: what happens, on the contrary, is too often that different kinds of barriers (linguistic, ideological, due to mutually ignored traditions and so on) forbid such a world-wide view. On our specific subject, a widespread mistake or simply a naiveté is to take the deep and well-known unity of pragmatics belonging to the English-speaking world of analytic philosophy as the very first trend in metalinguistic thought overcoming the gap between theoretic and pragmatic approach, viewing the speaking activity as related not only to the domain of knowledge, but also to that of action. Just confining ourselves to the Western/Central European situation, we shouldn't ignore the old and large stream of German-speaking scholars, who however do not belong to/create an actual common school, such as Bernard Bolzano, Gottlob Frege, Alexius Meinong. They all well understood that questions do not only reveal a lack of something, but also compel their addressees to fill such a gap. See Gobber,

act." (Searle, 1969). " The general form of (many kinds of) illocutionary acts is

? (*p*) for yes – no questions

people were at the party?" is represented as

"Why did he do it?" is represented as

character of questions, promises and the like.

forces'" (Austin, 1962).

form, e.g.,

2011.

? (He did it because …)

But "Did you do it?", a yes –no question, is represented as

? (You did it)

In so far as we confine our discussion to simple subject predicate propositions, with a singular definite referring term as subject, we can represent the distinctions in the form

F (RP)

"*R*" for the referring expression and the capital *P* for the predicating expression." (Searle, 1969, as the following table).


Table 1. Types of illocutionary act.

7 A further preparatory rule should be: "S believes that H knows 'the answer', i.e. if the proposition is true or, in case of propositional function, the element needed to complete the proposition truly". I owe the suggestion of this addition to Aldo Frigerio.

Queries and Predicate – Argument Relationship 55

("Yes I do", or "No I do not") that is a declaration and not an assertion. Thus ║ask║ (in the simple directive sense) = ║request║ and ║ask?║in the sense of yes-no question differs from ║direct║ only by the fact that *P* ∈ Prop ║ask║ (*i*) iff, for some illocution *A* , *P* (w) = I iff for

In wh-questions the form of the question contains a propositional function, and the hearer is requested to fill in a value of the free variable in the propositional function in such a way as to produce a true complete proposition. Thus, for example, the question "How many people went to the party?" is of the form "I request you, you tell me the correct value of *x* in '*x* number of people went to the party'." A full characterization of the logical form of whquestions cannot be made in this study, because it would require the definition of the notions of a property, a relation and an elementary proposition, all of which are part of first

Sometimes old mythology helps to show simply and synthetically the deep roots – the

If we read Plato's Symposion, we find the story told by Diotima to Socrates about the birth of Eros (love) from Poros (Πόρος, "resource" or "plenty") and Penia (Πενία, poverty).9 According to Plato, love "is also a philosopher: or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of

This tale can serve as a helpful hint to understand the formal affinity between indefinite and interrogative adjectives/pronouns: constantly related throughout typologically different

What does this structural similarity mean? It underlines the strong relationship between lack of determinacy (poverty) and the need to overcome it (in order to attain plentifulness). If somebody is not able to determine, to define something, s/he is in a position of having to ask somebody else to fill this gap. To be in this position does not necessarily imply acting upon it, adopting those decisions, using those devices where triggers such as *wh-*words are at work for retrieving missing information, for extracting knowledge, mining data or for

9 "What then is Love?" I asked; "Is he mortal?" "No." "What then?" "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two." "What is he, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what," I said, "is his power?" "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love. "And who," I said, "was his father, and who his mother?" "The tale," she said, "will take time; nevertheless I will tell

foundations – of what technical treatments of ever-green topics just foreshadow.

some *t* > *ti* , *A* is performed in < *bi*, *ai*, *t*, *l*, *w* >.

order illocutionary logic." (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985).

wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant."

you…" The tale can be read in The Internet Classics Archive:

http://classics.mit.edu//Plato/symposium.html.

10 http://wals.info/chapter/46

**2.6 Triggers** 

languages10.

receiving the cooperation requested.

In 1985 Searle and Vanderveken publish *Foundations of Illocutionary Logic*. Questions are, once more, mentioned among speech acts considered as illocutionary acts. Therefore questions too consist of an illocutionary force F and a propositional content P. Illocutionary logic aims to formalize the logical properties of illocutionary forces. In the case of questions, the authors consider requests and asks within the class of English directives.

According to the meanings attributed to the occurring symbols8, definitions of 'request' and 'ask' are as follows:

"*request* (!)

A request is a directive illocution that allows for the possibility of refusal. A request can be granted or refused by the hearer. Thus ║request║ differs from ║direct ║only by the fact that mode (║request║) (*i*, P) = I iff *i* ∏�! *P* and the speaker in *i* allows the hearer the possibility of refusing to carry out the future course of action represented by *P*. "Request" is the paradigmatic directive verb, but since it is special in having a rather polite mode of achievement of its illocutionary point, it cannot be taken as the primitive directive.

*ask*.

"Ask" has two quite distinct uses. One is in the notion of asking a question and the second is in the notion of asking someone to do something. Questions are always directives, for they are attempts to get the hearer to perform a speech act. In the simple directive sense, "ask" names the same illocutionary force as "request". In the sense of "ask a question" it means request that the hearer perform a speech act to the speaker, the form of which is already determined by the propositional content of the question. Thus if the question is a yes-no question requesting an assertive, the speaker expresses the propositional content of the answer in asking the question; and all that the hearer is asked to do is affirm or deny that propositional content. For example, to ask someone whether it is raining is to request him to perform a true assertion with the propositional content that it is or that it is not raining.

The illocutionary force of the illocutionary act that is requested to be performed in case of asking a question is not necessarily assertive. When the minister in the wedding chapel asks "Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?", he is asking for a response

<sup>8</sup> ║ ║ is the function that assigns to each illocutionary verb the force or type of speech act that it names; *i* is a variable for possible contexts of utterance;

*P* is a variable for propositions;

<sup>∏�</sup> names a relation between contexts of utterance and propositions that determines the condition of commitment to illocutionary point ∏;

I names the integer one or the truth value: truth, or the success value : success;

<sup>∈</sup> is the sign of membership;

Prop names the set of all propositions;

*A* is a variable for illocutionary acts;

*bi* is a variable for hearers;

*ai* is a variable for speakers; it names the speaker of context of utterance *i*;

*t* is a variable for moments of time;

*l* is a variable for places of utterance;

*w* is a variable for possible words

Prop ║ask║ (*i*) is the set of all propositions which respect the conditions imposed by the illocutionary force ║ask║on the propositional content P in a context *i*.

("Yes I do", or "No I do not") that is a declaration and not an assertion. Thus ║ask║ (in the simple directive sense) = ║request║ and ║ask?║in the sense of yes-no question differs from ║direct║ only by the fact that *P* ∈ Prop ║ask║ (*i*) iff, for some illocution *A* , *P* (w) = I iff for some *t* > *ti* , *A* is performed in < *bi*, *ai*, *t*, *l*, *w* >.

In wh-questions the form of the question contains a propositional function, and the hearer is requested to fill in a value of the free variable in the propositional function in such a way as to produce a true complete proposition. Thus, for example, the question "How many people went to the party?" is of the form "I request you, you tell me the correct value of *x* in '*x* number of people went to the party'." A full characterization of the logical form of whquestions cannot be made in this study, because it would require the definition of the notions of a property, a relation and an elementary proposition, all of which are part of first order illocutionary logic." (Searle, Vanderveken, 1985).
