Biased questions and Hamblin semantics

Anton Zimmerling
Pushkin State Russian Language Institute / Institute of Linguistics RAS

Abstract: This paper takes a stand on Hamblin semantics and its relation to the semantics-to-pragmatics interface. Biased questions, where the speaker finds one of the options more likely and expects the confirmation that p is true, raise a concern about the limits of Hamblin semantics. I argue that biased questions have modified Hamblin semantics, while unbiased questions have unconstrained Hamblin semantics. The optional bias feature explains compositionally. It is triggered by likelihood presuppositions ranging Hamblin sets and highlighting the preferred alternative(s). Biased effects are exceptionally possible in alternative and wh-questions, but only in polar questions, they can be encoded lexically and grammatically. I argue that Hamblin semantics covers all core types of questions, while some of its applications for non-questions are problematic.

Keywords: Hamblin semantics, exhaustive sets, wh-words, alternatives, biased questions, semantics-to-pragmatics interface, communicative structure, discourse coherence, presupposition, compositionality

For citation: Zimmerling A. Biased questions and Hamblin semantics. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2023. Vol. 6, iss. 2. Pp. 92–135. doi:10.37632/PI.2023.94.43.005