Biased polar questions
in Vietnamese
Anne Nguyen & Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine
National University of Singapore

TodayDifferent polar question constructions can carry different bias:“Is it raining?” vs “Isn’t it raining?”(see e.g. Ladd 1981)

Ø Today, we describe the use conditions and bias of polar
question forms in Vietnamese.
• Rudin (2018, 2022) attempts to derive bias effects bypragmatic competition between speech acts.
• We show that some but not all such conditions inVietnamese questions can be explained via competition.
2Terms• (Epistemic) bias:
The speaker has (epistemic) bias towards p if the speaker’s
epistemic state makes p more likely than ¬p.
• Contextual evidence (Büring & Gunlogson 2000):“Evidence that has just become mutually available to theparticipants in the current discourse situation.”3

Vietnamese polar questions
We concentrate on three polar response-seeking constructions.
(1) A: Trời (có) đang mưa không?
itCÓ PROGrain KHÔNG

B: {Có/Không}.
CÓ/NEG(2) A: Trời đang mưa à?
it PROG rain À

B: {Phải/Không}.
right/NEG(3) A: Trời đang mưa á?
it PROG rain Á≈ ‘Is it raining? {Yes / No}.’

B: {Phải/Không}.
right/NEG(We write “?”. “?” does not indicate an intonational contour.)4Vietnamese polar questions
1.

(có)…không? basic polar question• Must be unbiased (when unembedded)2.

…à? (with falling tone)• Speaker currently has epistemic bias towards p

3.

…á? (with rising tone)• There is contextual evidence for p• Speaker previously had epistemic bias towards ¬p(There are also other polar question forms, such as …phải
không? which requires private evidence.)5

(có)…không?

(1) Trời (có) đang mưakhông?
it CÓ PROG rain KHÔNG

Ø Must be unbiased.
✓ (1)• Situation 1 — no bias:
You are sitting in a windowless room with no information about
current weather conditions when your co-worker comes in.

• Situation 2 — positive bias from context:# (1)You see your co-worker enter the office wearing a wet raincoat.
• Situation 3 — negative bias from context:# (1)You see your co-worker enter the office with a red sweating face.

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…à? (falling)(2) Trời đang mưa à?
it PROG rain ÀØ The speaker currently has epistemic bias towards p.
• Situation 1 — no bias:# (2)You are sitting in a windowless room with no information about
current weather conditions when your co-worker comes in.
✓ (2)• Situation 2 — positive bias from context:
You see your co-worker enter the office wearing a wet raincoat.

• Situation 3 — negative bias from context:# (2)You see your co-worker enter the office with a red sweating face.

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…à? (falling)Ø The speaker currently has epistemic bias towards p.
✓• Situation 4 — surprising but willing to believe:Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you thought he was an only child. You say:✓John có chị à? Tớ cứ-tưởng nó là con một.
John have sisterÀ I thought he COP only.child‘John has a sister? I thought he’s an only child.’• Situation 5 — surprising and unwilling to believe:#Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you know he’s an only child. You say:# John có chị à? Không thể nào!
John have sister À not possible PRT‘John has a sister? That’s impossible!’8

…á? (rising)Ø Requires positive contextual evidence for p and the speaker
previously had epistemic bias towards ¬p.
✓• Situation 4 — surprising but willing to believe:Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you thought he was an only child. You say:✓John có chị á? Tớ cứ-tưởng nó là con một.
John have sisterÁ I thought he COP only.child‘John has a sister? I thought he’s an only child.’✓• Situation 5 — surprising and unwilling to believe:Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you know he’s an only child. You say:✓John có chị á? Không thể nào!
John have sister Á not possible PRT‘John has a sister? That’s impossible!’9

…á? (rising)(3) Trời đang mưa á?
it PROG rain ÁØ Requires positive contextual evidence for p and the speaker
previously had epistemic bias towards ¬p.
• Situation 1 — no bias:# (3)You are sitting in a windowless room with no information about
current weather conditions when your co-worker comes in.
• Situation 2 — positive bias from context:# (3)You see your co-worker enter the office wearing a wet raincoat.
• Situation 3 — negative bias from context:# (3)You see your co-worker enter the office with a red sweating face.
The speaker did not have epistemic bias towards ¬p before.
10English rising declaratives“It’s raining?”

Ø Vietnamese (falling) …à? questions have use conditions similar
to English rising declaratives (RDs; see Gunlogson 2001, Jeong2018, Rudin 2018, 2022):• Situation 1 — no bias:# RD / # …à?
You are sitting in a windowless room with no information about
current weather conditions when your co-worker comes in.
✓RD / ✓…à?
• Situation 2 — positive bias from context:
You see your co-worker enter the office wearing a wet raincoat.

• Situation 3 — negative bias from context:# RD / # …à?
You see your co-worker enter the office with a red sweating face.

11English rising declaratives
Ø Vietnamese (falling) …à? questions have use conditions similar
to English rising declaratives (RDs; see Gunlogson 2001, Jeong
2018, Rudin 2018, 2022):✓RD / ✓…à?
• Situation 4 — surprising but willing to believe:Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you thought he was an only child. You say:“John has a sister? I thought he’s an only child.”• Situation 5 — surprising and unwilling to believe: ✓RD / # …à?
Your friend tells you that John went to the airport to pick up his(John’s) sister but you know he’s an only child. You say: “John hasa sister? That’s impossible!”

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Bias from pragmatic competition
Rudin (2018, 2022) proposes that “bias effects associated with RDs
should be regarded as pragmatic, not conventional” (Rudin 2022).
A. RD in competition with falling declarative⇒ S cannot commit to p
(Falling declarative makes commitment to p, but not RD.)
• S is willing to believe p but has insufficient evidence OR• S believes p is false
B. RD in competition with polar q⇒ S believes A believes p(In Farkas & Bruce 2010 Table model terms, RD projects {CG+p},unlike polar questions which project {CG + p, CG + ¬p}.)13

Explaining …à? by competition
Can we explain the bias profiles of Vietnamese polar questions
from competition? Yes and no.
• No: We cannot extend Rudin’s logic for RDs to explain thedistribution of …à?
• Yes: The requirement of matrix (có)…không? to be evidentiallyunbiased is due to competition with …á? and …à? forms.

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Explaining …à? by competition
Let’s assume …à? has a conventional meaning akin to RD(projecting {CG+p} with no speaker commitment) and try to adopt
Rudin’s logic for …à?:A. RD/…à? in competition with falling declarative⇒ S cannot commit to p
• S willing to believe p but has insufficient evidence (✓…à?)• S believes p is false — not possible with “…à?”!
Ø We cannot use this (or similar) competition logic to block the useof …à? when S believes p is false.
15( …à? vs …á? )?
A possible candidate for competition with …à? is …á?, which involves
negative epistemic bias.
After evidence for p:

Unwilling to believe p Willing to believe p

No prior bias

(not possible)…à?

Prior bias towards p(not possible)…à?

Prior bias towards ¬p …á?

…à? / …á?

• The infelicity of …à? when S is unwilling to believe p cannot be due tocompetition with …á?, as …à? and …á? overlap in their distribution!
Ø We must distinguish between prior vs current (pre- and post-evidence)
epistemic bias.
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(Có)…không? vs (…à? / …á?)Recall that (có)…không? must be unbiased, whereas …à? and …á? requires
some form of epistemic bias p.
Ø Only (có)…không? is possible in embedded clauses (see Duffield 2013)
and then it is compatible with bias:(4) Nếu tớ muốn biết [Sam có đạt giải nhất không] thì tớ phải hỏi ai?
IfI want know Sam CÓ get prize first KHÔNG then I must ask who‘If I want to know whether Sam got the first prize, whom should I ask?’
You know Sam wanted to get the first prize in the contest.
a. No bias: You don’t know how Sam did.

✓(4)b. Positive bias: You see Sam smiling afterwards, so you think he got it.

✓(4)c. Negative bias: You see Sam frowning afterwards, so you think he didn’t get it. ✓(4)ØThe requirement of matrix (có)…không? to be unbiased can be explainedby it being in competition with ...à?/…á?.
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Conclusion• We detailed the use conditions and bias of Vietnamesepolar questions.
• Despite initial similarities between …à? and English risingdeclaratives, the use conditions of …à? cannot be explained
via pragmatic competition as Rudin proposes for English.
• However, competition may serve to explain theresistance to bias of matrix (có)…không? questions.
• The distribution of Vietnamese …à? vs …á? shows thatgrammars can make reference to both prior and current
epistemic bias.
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References
Brunelle, Marc, Kiều Phương Hạ, & Martine Grice. 2012. “Intonation in
Northern Vietnamese,” The Linguistic Review 29: 3–36.
Büring, Daniel & Christine Gunlogson. 2000 “Aren’t positive and negative polar
questions the same?” Manuscript.
Duffield, Nigel. 2013. “Head-First: On the head-initiality of Vietnameseclauses,” in Linguistics of Vietnamese: An international survey.
Jeong, Sunwoo. 2018. “Intonation and sentence type conventions: Two typesof rising declaratives,” Journal of Semantics 35: 305–356.
Rudin, Deniz. 2018. Rising Above Commitment. UCSC dissertation.
Rudin, Deniz. 2022. “Intonational commitments,” Journal of Semantics 39:339–383.

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…phải không?

Trời đang mưa phải không?
it PROG rain right KHÔNG

Ø Speaker has private evidence for p (evidence that the speakerbelieves is not available to the addressee) and currently has
epistemic bias towards p.
• Situation 2 — positive bias from contextual evidence:# (4)You see your co-worker enter the office wearing a wet raincoat.
✓ (4)• Situation 2’ — positive bias from private evidence:
A reliable friend just told you on the phone that it’s raining
outside, when your co-worker comes in.

Incompatible with situation 1 (no bias), situation 3 (negative biasfrom context), and situations 4/5 (surprising contextual evidence).
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Appendix: Decomposing …à? / …á?
We treat à and á as distinct particles here. Note that:• Vietnamese tone is lexical;• we are unaware of any other sentence-final particles in Vietnamese whichappear to form tonal minimal pairs; such alternations are certainly notproductive;
However, it is still tempting to decompose them into a and right boundary
tones ↑ / ↓ . See also…
• Davis 2009 on Japanese yo↑ vs yo↓• Rudin 2018 and citations there on English declaratives and interrogatives
with ↑ and ↓There is some evidence for right boundary tones ↑ / ↓ being used forinterrogatives / declaratives, respectively, in Vietnamese, but not consistently(Brunelle et al 2012).
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