Biased Yes/No Questions: The Role of VERUM1

This paper is concerned with information-seeking yes/no (yn-)questions expressing an epistemic bias on the speaker’s side. Two main kinds of bias have been discussed in the recent literature: a type of bias where the polarity of the question and the polarity of the propositional content of the bias differ, and a type of bias where the polarities are the same. The first type of epistemic bias can be illustrated with positive yn-question with the particle really. (1S’), for example, necessarily conveys that the speaker originally believed the correct answer to that question to be in the negative. The corresponding version without really does not necessarily carry this bias and it is thus acceptable in unbiased scenarios like (1), witness the contrast (1S)-(1S’) (Romero and Han 2004).