Question meaning = resolution conditions
نویسنده
چکیده
Introduction To know the meaning of a declarative sentence is to know what the world should be like for the sentence to be true. To know the meaning of an interrogative sentence is to know what information is needed to resolve it. Like the meaning of a declarative sentence is equated with its truth-conditions—and identified with the set of worlds satisfying these conditions—the meaning of an interrogative sentence should be equated with its resolution conditions—and identified with the set of propositions that satisfy these conditions. While so much may seem common sense, traditional approaches to questions have failed to build on this insight. I will argue that to do so leads to a new view of question meaning, which shares the formal advantages of the partition theory of Groenendijk and Stokhof, but enjoys a greater generality.
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