Deriving short answers from Hamblin sets: A case study of Mandarin wh-conditionals

Abstract

A short answer to a wh-question cannot be directly derived from the latter’s Hamblin–Karttunen denotation, which is a set of propositions. However, I argue that such a derivation is possible when the Hamblin-Karttunen denotation is dynamicized. In particular, wh-expressions have dynamic discourse contributions in the sense of introducing discourse referents (drefs), as evidenced by cross-sentential binding. Drefs introduced by wh-expressions not only provide a way to model short answers to wh-questions, but are also useful for modeling a non-canonical wh-construction known as wh-conditionals in Mandarin.

A dynamic semantics of single-wh and multiple-wh questions

“…This paper is part of a larger effort to develop a dynamic inquisitive semantics framework and explore several of its potential benefits. Further support for a dynamic approach to questions comes from anaphora, intervention effects, and wh-conditionals (Groenendijk 1998;van Rooij 1998;Aloni & van Rooij 2002;Haida 2007;Dotlačil & Roelofsen 2019;Li 2019). The recent work of Xiang (2016Xiang ( , 2020a is in the same spirit, in that it also develops a framework for question semantics which is more fine-grained than proposition-set theories.…”

“…2 Dynamic inquisitive semantics in turn builds on static inquisitive semantics (Ciardelli, Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2018) and earlier work on dynamic semantics (in particular that of Groenendijk, Stokhof & Veltman 1996). For other recent work on questions in dynamic semantics, in the same spirit as ours but focusing on different empirical phenomena, see Li 2019 andZhao 2019. (3) a. If Bill eats an u apple he peels it u first.…”

Explaining presupposition projection in (coordinations of) polar questions

“…(iv) Questions are felicitous only if all their answers are defined at the context. Li (2019) proposes a system of this kind.…”