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## Deconstructing Questions: Reanalyzing a heterogenous class of speech acts via commitment and engagement

Johannes M. Heim University of Greifswald johannes.heim@uni-greifswald.de

Martina E. Wiltschko ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

martina.wiltschko@icrea.cat

Abstract: Direct and indirect characterizations of the relation between clause type  (syntactic  form)  and  speech  act  (pragmatic  function)  are  problematic because  they  map  oversimplifi  ed  forms  onto  decomposable  functions.  We propose  an  alternative  account  of  questions  by  abandoning  any  (in)direct link to their clause type and by decomposing speech acts using two variables encoding propositional attitudes. One variable captures the speaker's commitment to an utterance, another their expectation toward the addressee's engagement. We couch this proposal in a syntactic framework that relies on two  projections  dedicated  to  managing  common  ground  (GroundP)  and managing turn-taking  (ResponseP),  respectively.  Empirical  evidence  comes from the conversational properties of sentence-fi  nal intonation in English and sentence-peripheral particles that serve to manage the common ground.

Key  words: speech  act,  commitment,  engagement,  grounding,  intonation, particles

## 1. Questions do not form a natural class

Questions  have  conversational  eff  ects  that  seem  straightforward  to  defi  ne. Searle  (1969),  for  instance,  defi  nes  them  as  attempts  to  elicit  information from the hearer. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the forms and  functions  of  diff  erent  types  of  questions  with  the  aim  of  identifying what  these  types  have  in  common  and  whether  they  can  be  assumed  to form a natural class. Specifi  cally, we address three problems that arise from characterizations of questions in the previous literature: (i) the identifi  cation of marked and unmarked forms of questions; (ii) the unifi  cation of diff  erent types of questions; and (iii) the mapping of forms and functions in the context of  questions.  We  address  these  problems by arguing for a new typology of questions that conceptualizes questions as diff  erent confi  gurations of speaker commitment and addressee engagement. Th e former captures the epistemic stance  of  the  speaker,  the  latter  their  expectation  toward  the  addressee  on what to do with the question. Both variables are independent of the notion of questionhood and can be applied to a range of speech acts that cannot be described as attempts to elicit information. Th ey nevertheless share important properties with the notion of questionhood. As a result of our reanalysis, we argue that the many phenomena associated with questionhood do not form a natural class. Th is  provokes the question of what questions really are and how to diff  erentiate them from other speech acts. Our central claim is that questions can be deconstructed and analysed with the same conversational variables as other types of speech acts.

As a somewhat representative sample of English phenomena associated with questionhood in the literature, consider the data in (1) and (2). Th ese examples are constructed as minimal pairs to allow us to limit the factors of variation to consider in our analysis. Th ey correspond to naturally occurring data discussed in corpus-based analyses (see Hedberg et al . 2017 for authentic examples of the diff  erent variants of polar questions and content questions, and Bolinger 1957 for authentic examples of echo questions and alternative questions). We follow Bartels (1997) in only considering syntactically complete sentences.  Fragments  and  embedded  speech  acts  will  have  to  await  future investigation. In the presentation of our examples, we avoid punctuation marks - which take the notion of questionhood to be self-explanatory - and include arrows that represent the shape of sentence-fi  nal intonation (henceforth SFI). We also  provide  tone  ToBI  annotations  following  the  offi cial  guidelines  in Silverman et al. 2012, which build on high and low tones exclusively.

| (1) a. Who won ↓     | (H* L-L%)   |
|----------------------|-------------|
| b. ShewonWHAT ↑      | (L*+H H-H%) |
| c. Who won (again) ↑ | (L* H-H%)   |

Responding ResponseP

ENGAGEMENT

Grounding

| (2)   | a. She won ↑ (L* H-H%)              |
|-------|-------------------------------------|
|       | b. Did she win ↑ (L* H-H%)          |
|       | c. Did she win or loose ↓ (H* L-L%) |

All  questions  in  1  contain  a  wh-pronoun  and  none  of  the  questions  in  2 do. Th is  suggests an initial categorical distinction in English questions. We argue, however, that the diff  erences between the data in 1 and 2 as well as the similarities across them make a categorical distinction of question types as challenging as fi  nding a common denominator for all of them. We depart from a form-based notion of questionhood and primarily rely on function for our analysis. Th is  function-based analysis leads us to conclude that the phenomena in 1 and 2 are so  diff  erent  that  they  cannot  be  members  of  a singular natural class. Instead, they can be classifi  ed according to the same dimensions as other phenomena that serve to manage the common ground (Stalnaker 1978).

We couch our analysis based on commitment and engagement in a formalist framework,  which  employs  syntax  as  a  mediator  of  form  and  function. Following Wiltschko's (2014) Universal Spine Hypothesis (USH), we rely on a cross-linguistically uniform architecture that relates diff  erent functions in a sentence. Th e USH broadly follows the generative tradition (Chomsky 1995) in assuming a syntactocentric model of grammar which relies on a hierarchically organized structure that confi  gures sentences. On top of the clausal structure (CP), we assume two additional projections, a Grounding Phrase (GroundP) and a Response Phrase (ReponseP), which both scope over the proposition (Wiltschko & Heim 2016, Wiltschko 2017). Th ese projections host the Units of Language expressing commitment and engagement (see Figure 1), which regulate the management of common ground and the management of turntaking. Each of those projections can be independently motivated by the clause type restrictions of discourse particles (Heim et al. 2016; Yang & Wiltschko 2018, Heim 2019a) and the interpretation of several intonational contours in English (Heim 2019b).

Figure 1: Syntactic integration of commitment and engagement

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We  defi  ne  the  function  of  questions  and  other  speech  acts  in  terms  of conversational  eff  ects.  Speech  acts  serve  to  enrich  the  common  ground (Stalnaker 1978) in the form of a collaborative eff  ort that minimally consists of  an  initiation  and  a  reaction  phase  (see  also  Clark  &  Brennan  1991  who assume a distinction between a presentation and an acceptance phase). Th is eff  ort is dynamic in the sense that a speaker projects the future development of the conversation (Auer 2002, Farkas & Bruce 2010, Malamud & Stephenson 2014, Stalnaker 2014). We consider this combination of actual and projected common  ground  management  a  refl  ex  of  Austin's  (1962)  distinction  of illocution and perlocution. Since they became an object of study in modern linguistics, speech acts have marked the intersection between what speakers intend with their linguistic performances and what hearers make out of them (Lee 1974). Hence, any functional defi  nition of questions needs to address how linguistic forms map onto intended meanings, and how these intended meanings result in performative acts.

We develop our argument as follows: We begin by discussing the form and function of a range of phenomena in English which are associated with the linguistic notion of questionhood (see Nielsen (2020, this issue for an overview of  the  phenomena  associated  with  questionhood).  We  also  provide  a  brief overview of the standard approach to model the mapping of their forms onto their functions. We then propose to characterize questions by their function independent of the formal descriptions infl  uencing these previous accounts. We argue that questions need to be decomposed into diff  erent confi  gurations of commitment and engagement. Next, we show how a syntactic integration of these variables can overcome the mapping problems of previous accounts. With syntax as a mediator of form and function, we have the means to model speech acts as complex phenomena that relate both speaker and addressee to  the  propositional  content.  We  then  show  how  our  account  can  derive diff  erent types of questions in English. We conclude by revisiting the question of encoding the functions of the various questions, taking into consideration the contribution of sentence-fi  nal intonation (SFI).

## 2. Forms, Functions, and Form-Function-Mappings of Questions

In this section, we provide a brief overview of the forms and functions typically associated with questions. Aft  er pointing out some variation in the encoding of questions both with and without wh-pronouns, we discuss the functions of various types of questions with respect to their response requirements. We then turn to previous accounts of form-function mappings of questions which oft  en turn to context as a modifi  er of these mappings. We demonstrate that these accounts are based on oversimplifi  ed mappings and fail to explain how context derives the indirect mappings. Th is survey serves as a motivation for developing our own account of questionhood.

1

Question

INT

Th e empirical problem at hand, which we refer to as the speech act problem, has recently received considerable attention (e.g. Beyssade & Marandin 2007, Farkas  &  Roelofson  2017,  Rudin  2018)  in  response  to  earlier,  more  direct approaches  to  the  mapping  of  form  and  function  (Sadock  1974,  Levinson 1983). Th e common denominator of these accounts is that they distinguish between marked and unmarked forms of questions which map unto standard and derived functions of questions, respectively. We illustrate this in Figure 2: A combination of declarative clause type and falling SFI is considered an unmarked encoding of a standard assertion; a combination of interrogative clause type and rising SFI as in (2)b is considered an unmarked encoding of a standard question. Derived questions with a marked form are those speech acts that combine a declarative with rising SFI as in (2)a or an interrogative form with a falling SFI as in (2)c.

Figure 2: Simplifi  ed form-function mapping

Following the rationale represented by Figure 2, it would be possible, as one anonymous  reviewer  remarks,  to  establish  a  comprehensive  typology  of question. Such a typology would be based on a set of linguistic features (X) that map onto an attempt to elicit information characterized by a particular set of possible answers (Y) in context (C). Context hereby emerges as a default explanation for every indirect mapping of forms and function. We consider each of these variables in turn.

A comparison of the linguistic features in 1 and 2 shows signifi  cant variation both within and across diff  erent question types. Th is variation suggests that it is diffi cult to build the notion of questionhood on strictly form-based criteria. As  for  word  order  and  intonation,  which  have  played  a  prominent  role  in formal  treatments  of  questions,  we  fi  nd  considerable  variation  within  the two groups above. Example (1)a includes a clause-initial wh-pronoun, but no subject-auxiliary-inversion (SAI). Example (1)b contains a wh-pronoun, but in its in-situ (non-initial) position, and no SAI. Both (1)b and (1)c occur with rising SFI while (1)a typically occurs with a falling SFI. In brief, neither SAI nor SFI is a reliable cue to identify the unmarked encoding of questions including a wh-pronoun. Based on form alone, these questions do not form a natural class. Questions without a wh-pronoun, show the same pattern: Example (2) a occurs without SAI, but with rising SFI; Example (2)b occurs with both SAI and with rising SFI; Example (2)c occurs with SAI, but with falling SFI. Even if we allow for a diff  erent encoding of information and polarity questions, the data in (1) and (2) reveal that it is diffi cult to identify any single unmarked form of questions. Th is  is  all  the  more  true  for  the  encoding  of  the  overall category of questions: there is no confi  guration involving SAI, rising SFI, or wh-pronouns that would reliable identify a question as a question. While all examples in in (1) and (2) have been identifi  ed as questions in the literature, their  form  does  not  suggest  that  they  form  a  natural  class.  Th e  possible objection  that  diff  erent  questions  are  encoded  by  diff  erent  forms  (e.g.  whpronouns or SAI or SFI) is only as good as a defi  nition of questionhood that can show that these questions have one central function identifying them as belonging to an overall speech act category of questions.

To understand what such a central function could be, we need to turn to the functions of the diff  erent types of questions and look for a common denominator.  Yet,  a  function-based  notion  of  questionhood  that  allows the  diff  erent  subtypes  to  be  unifi  ed  seems  equally  out  of  reach  -  despite  a longstanding pursuit to do so. Semanticists generally argue that the function of a question is defi  ned by the characteristics of their answers (Montague 1973), the truth values of these answers (Hamblin 1958) or the set of true answers (Karttunen 1977). Pragmaticists have associated this function with a (covert) operator (Stenius 1967) or a performative predicate (Lewis 1970), which turns the propositional content of a question into a directive speech act that requests information from the addressee (Searle 1975; see also Borchmann 2020 (this issue) for an account of Searle's analysis and classifi  cation). If we revisit the questions (Qs) in (1) and (2), and include possible answers (As), we note that a  functional account of questionhood based on possible answers also faces serious challenges.

- (3) a. Q: Who won ↓

- A: Ada Hegerberg.

- b. Q: She won what ↑

A: I said she won the Ballon D'Or

- c. Q: Who won (again) ↑

- A: Marta, of course.

- (4) a. Q: She won ↑

- A: Yes, I can't believe she did!

- b. Q: Did she win ↑

- A: Yes, that's right.

- c. Q: Did she win or lose ↓

- A: She won!

At fi  rst glance, a categorical distinction between the questions in (3) and those in (4) based on the presence of a wh-pronoun seems to match their diff  erent response properties, thereby lending credit to an answer-based approach to their functions. Each question in (3) requires from the addressee to supply a missing piece of information identifi  ed by the wh-pronoun. Each question in (4) requests a selection among possible alternatives (which could be more than two in (4)c, of course). Th e  set  of  possible  answers considered by the speaker  is  always  an  exhaustive  set  of  alternatives  corresponding  to  the alternatives named in (4)c (Westera 2017). We assume that the answer sets are similarly restricted in (4)a and (4)b - here corresponding to polar opposites. Th is  exhaustive marking of the response set is absent in (3). Of course, the addressee can expand the set in 4, just as s/he can cancel the presupposition that somebody won something in 3. Y et, the expansion of the set of alternatives in 4 comes at the price of marking this prosodically, for instance with a risefall-rise  contour  (Westera  2019).  Both  types  of  questions  seem  to  serve  as requests  for  information  -  either  about  the  truth  of  a  proposition  or  for  a missing detail. A closer look at the individual examples, however, reveals that this binary distinction is artifi  cial. Th e answer in (3)a selects one alternative from a non-exhaustive set of alternatives (Hausser 1983). The answer in (3)b reveals that the question refers to all-given material (Artstein 2002, Reis 2017), which impacts the set of alternatives. Th e answer in (3)c reminds the person asking the question that there was only one alternative at stake in the fi  rst  place  -  thereby  opening a side topic of the conversation (Hedberg et  al .  2017).  Th e  answer  set  therefore  is  diff  erent  for  every  type  of  content question in (3). We see the same pattern in (4): While the question in (4)b fi  ts the description of a choice between an exhaustive list of alternatives, (4)a and (4)c are diff  erent. Example (4)a has the same set of alternatives as a polar question, but there is a bias towards the positive valuation of the truth values. Example (4)c asserts the choice of alternatives, but here there is no such bias. Just as with questions containing wh-pronoun, then, the variation in answers to the diff  erent questions without a wh-pronoun in (4) suggest that they fulfi  ll diff  erent functions. Together with our observations on the variation in form, our analysis of the functions of questions based on set of possible answers brings us to the conclusion that a form-function mapping must be complex: It is impossible to uniquely map one particular set of linguistic features on one particular function based on possible answers.

A possible way to salvage a direct mapping of form and function may rely on context. Bartels (1997) and Truckenbrodt (2012), for instance, rely on the notion of salient propositions to explain why content questions and so-called high-rise  questions  (Hirschberg  &  Ward  1992)  have  diff  erent  eff  ects  than rising  polarity  questions.  Since  neither  type  has  a  typical  question-rise  (L* H-H%) the accounts of intonational meaning of these authors need to rely on context to explain the questioning function. Th is notion of salient propositions, which  allows  an  unconstrained  impact  of  contextual  information  on  the interpretation of a question, points to a central problem of including context as a variable in our defi  nition of questions: it passes the onus of interpretation onto the addressee. Questions are only questions if the addressee considers context  to  suffi ciently  support  a  question  interpretation.  While  contextual information certainly plays a role in deriving speech acts, we argue that its relation to the interpretation of questions lacks a systematic treatment that makes clear predictions of when context impacts a question interpretation and when it does not. We therefore include contextual information in our analysis of the diff  erent types of questions only to the extent that it explains the speaker's evidential basis for commitment (see below).

Th e preceding discussion of the forms and functions of the questions in (1) and (2) points to variation in the phenomena associated with questionhood within linguistics independent of whether they contain a wh-pronoun or not. If we cannot identify particular forms to uniquely defi  ne a question, and if we cannot constrain the defi  nition of what is requested, a conception of questions as  a  natural  class  is  untenable.  We  would  have  to  defi  ne  questionhood  to be as broad as saying that a question is an attempt to elicit information. A simple directive as Tell me your name! shows that such a defi  nition notably overgenerates.  We  suggest  that  this  is  an  unsatisfying  solution  because  it leaves  us  without  any  criteria  to  determine  what  counts  as  a  question  and without any means of creating a typology that only encompasses questions. A satisfying outcome would be to apply the notion of questionhood to a set of constructions that have a single common denominator which can be defi  ned in terms that allow to exclude overgeneration and hence is specifi  c enough to uniquely identify the members of that set. If such common denominator cannot be identifi  ed, the emerging typology is incompatible with the assumption that there is a natural class of questions. Diff  erent types of questions must then be considered diff  erent speech acts.

## 3.  Diff  erent  questions  have  diff  erent  confi  gurations  of  commitment  and engagement

It is oft  en claimed that a small set of forms map onto a small set of illocutionary functions in many unrelated languages (Sadock & Zwicky 1985, Portner 2004, Allan 2006). Th ese functions are said to be the essential building blocks of our  conversations.  Questions,  in  particular,  serve  both  to  structure  our conversations (Roberts 1996) and to enhance the extent of our shared beliefs (Stalnaker 1978, 2002). Despite the challenges of adequately describing the form and function of questions and their form-function-mappings, then, we submit that there is something so intuitive about the notion of questionhood that  is  seems  unwise  to  completely  abolish  it.  We  therefore  aim  in  this paper  to  reconceptualize  questions  as  interactional  acts  that  relate  speaker and  addressee  to  a  choice  between  propositional  alternatives.  We  propose DP

have that what the diff  erent types of questions have in common is not unique to questionhood.  Rather,  the  phenomena  associated  with  questionhood  are defi  ned  by  two  variables that also defi  ne diff  erent types of assertions. Each move in a conversation communicates the speaker's attitude to what they say and their intention of how the addressee should relate to it. Th us, we argue that all of the speech acts labeled as questions or assertions can be decomposed into  these  variables  'speaker  commitment'  and  'addressee  engagement' . Th is deconstruction of questions and assertions is possible by employing the syntactic module that mediates between form and function. Here we develop a  syntactic  account that builds on relating the propositional content to the interlocutors.

Mediating the relation between form and function is at the core of syntax. It is only through syntactic composition, that we can understand why the same form may be associated with diff  erent functions despite lexical identity: the diff  erence in function correlates with diff  erent positions along the syntactic spine (see Wiltschko 2014, Wiltschko et al . 2018). Consider, for example, the multifunctionality of the English word have ,  which is employed both as an auxiliary and as a main verb. In (5), we see that the position on the syntactic spine determines its function. Have can either occur in the Tense Phrase of in the Verb Phrase. Depending on its location in the syntactic spine, the same form fulfi  lls two functions.

## (5) Mu  ltifunctionality of have

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We see the same eff  ect with German was , which can be employed both as a question word and as an indefi  nite pronoun (where it can also be realized as etwas ). Th eir close relationship is a cross-linguistically pervasive phenomenon (Bhat 2001). Consider the minimal pair in (6) and (7), where the interpretation of was depends on its distribution. Sentence initial was in (6) has moved from a complement position in the Verb Phrase (VP) to a specifi  er position in the Complementizer Phrase (CP) and is interpreted as a question pronoun. In (7), was is hosted in the voice Phrase (vP) and is interpreted as an indefi  nite pronoun.

DP

an elephant

- (6) [ CP Was [C hat [ TP die Schlange [ T hat [ VP gefressen was]]]] 'What did the snake eat?'
- (7) [ CP [ TP die Schlange [ T hat [vP was [ VP gefressen]]]] 'Th e snake ate something. '

Th is suggests that the syntactic spine adds something to the interpretation of individual (lexical) forms. We refer to this as the substantivist view of syntax: the substance of structure adds meaning to words. Th e alternative to this view would be to postulate a series of lexical entries to capture the multi-functionality of Units of Language. But on such an approach there is no principled way to capture the types of multi-functionality observed. Th is is undesirable as multi-functionality is systematically related to syntactic distribution.

Clear evidence for the substantivist view of syntax comes from thetarole assignment where the position in the spine determines the role of the nominal argument. In (8), we see the same structural distribution as in (6) and (7): the same nominal fulfi  lls diff  erent functions depending on where it occurs in the syntactic spine. Th e higher argument is assigned the role of an agent; the lower argument that of a patient. Syntax assigns the theta-roles in vP and VP (Williams 1981, 1994).

## (8) The  ta-role assignment

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Th is substantivist view of syntax is captured by the Universal Spine Hypothesis in Wiltschko (2014), who argues that functional projections are universally associated with a core function. Th is core function is supplied by the spine and provides the added meaning described in (6) and (7). Universally, we see that form and function are mediated by a hierarchically-structured building plan, which captures the classifi  cation of events (in the theta structure), their point of view and anchoring (in the A-structure) and their linking to the context (in responding ResponseP

the A '-structure). Building on previous work on response particles (Wiltschko 2017) and discourse particles (Heim et  al. 2016, Wiltschko & Heim 2016), we  extended  the  universal  spine  to  incorporate  an  interactional  structure, which  is  responsible  for  common  ground-  and  turn-taking  management (Wiltschko, to appear). Th e former is hosted in ResponseP , which serves both to project responses and contribute to a conversation with response particles, such as yes and no ;  the latter is hosted in GroundP , which serves to capture the interlocutors' attitude towards the proposition. Th e resulting structure is represented in Figure 3, including both structural labels and functions.

Figure 3: Th e extended spine provides substantive meaning

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Th is  way  to  syntactize  speech  acts  goes  beyond  earlier  attempts  to  derive speech acts syntactically as in Ross's (1970) performative hypothesis or the more recent attempts by Speas & Tenny (2003) and Haegeman & Hill (2013). In these earlier attempts, the structural layers responsible for interaction relate the interlocutors to the propositional content by mirroring the performative eff  ect of a speech act (i.e. something along the lines of Ross's 'I tell you that … '). Instead of taking this literal approach to a syntactization of speech acts, we take the propositional content to be related to the beliefs of the speaker in  GroundP.  Th is  relation  is  then  communicated  to  the  addressee  via  the ResponseP, which hosts a call on the addressee (Beyssade & Marandin 2006) to engage with the speaker's ground. Th e  key innovation in our account of speech acts, then, is the assumption that the speaker simultaneously signals both their propositional attitude and their expectation toward the addressee of what to do with the utterance. We can trace these functions for discourse particles (9) and response particles (10) separately.

LH%

responding

- (9) a. She won, didn't she?

didn't she

- b. She won, { eh/right}?
- (10) a. { S  o/well} , she won.
- b. Yeah, no , she won.

classification

Th e interactional structure supplies a host for both of these components. In (9)a,  for  example,  the  tag  itself  encodes  the  propositional  attitude.  It  is  the rising SFI, however, that turns (9)a into a request to confi  rm the truth of the proposition. Th e composition of this two-fold message is visualized in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Decomposing tags into their responding and grounding aspects

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Th e syntactictization of speech acts as illustrated in Figure 4 decomposes what other accounts take to be two sides of the same coin. Responding and grounding are both essential ingredients of questionhood, and syntax provides the means to  relate  them  to  the  propositional  content.  Tag  questions  and  intonation, which  contribute  two  separate  eff  ects,  make  visible  how  grounding  and responding relate to the rest of the sentence. We refer to the act of grounding as  'commitment'  and  to  the  act  of  projecting  a  response  as  'engagement' . Commitment can be defi  ned in terms of the speaker's readiness to publicly commit to the truth of a proposition with the risk of social sanctions if the propositions turns out to be false (MacFalane 2011, Krifk   a 2015). Engagement can be defi  ned as the speaker's expectation of how the addressee will respond to the speaker's utterance (Heim & Wiltschko in press ). To understand how commitment and engagement can derive diff  erent speech acts, consider fi  rst the example in (11). Assertions, such as (11), oft  en constitute the default case in speech act models.

- (11) She wo  n ↓ (H* L-L%)

Initiation

Speaker

Bel (p)

Reaction

Speaker

Bel (p)

Bel (A,p)

She won

Classic  speech  act  theory  assumes  that  an  assertion  has  two  eff  ects:  i)  to communicate a belief, and ii) to share this belief (Bach & Harish 1979). Th e process by which the speaker's belief is integrated by the addressee into his belief sets can be described as grounding. Grounding is defi  ned by Bavelas et  al .  (2012:  1)  as  'the  fundamental,  moment-by-moment  conversational process by which speaker and addressee are constantly establishing mutual understanding' .  It  is  important  to  recognize,  however,  that  grounding  is complex. Before a belief can be grounded, it may be necessary to negotiate it over several turns. At the very least, it needs to be accepted in a response move by the addressee, because the speaker cannot directly access the ground of the addressee (Clark & Brennan 1991, Stalnaker 2001). Figure 5 visualizes the two phases, which we refer to as Initiation and Reaction. During Initiation, the speaker (S) tables their belief Bel (S,p), which is registered by the addressee (A). For Bel(p) to enter the Common Ground, however, it is necessary for the addressee to acknowledge that they share the speaker's belief. Th is is done by tabling their belief (Bel A,p).

Figure 5: Negotiating an asserted belief (adapted from Wiltschko & Heim 2016)

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A  crucial  assumption  of  our  analysis  is  that  the  reaction  is  anticipated  by the speaker in their initiation turn. Th e speaker projects the continuation of the conversation (Auer 2002, Malamud & Stephenson 2014), which is why each speech act makes two separate contributions: one in which the attitude toward  the  proposition  is  expressed  and  one  in  which  the  expectation  of what will  happen  next  is  expressed.  Th e  innovation  in  our  account  is  that both aspects can be communicated independently, namely through diff  erent particles and SFI. Th is may raise the question of the importance of pragmatic inferencing, which is oft  en at the center of accounts on speech acts and also on  intonational  meaning.  We  submit  that  the  speaker  is  never  in  control over the perlocutionary act. Yet the speaker has a host of means to propose an  interpretation  of  the  illocutionary  act.  Pragmatic  inferencing  is  notably reduced  if  the  speaker  communicates  their  attitudes  and  intentions  via particles, SFI, facial expressions or gestures.

4. Polarity questions: An inverse relation of commitment and engagement Commitment and engagement are in an inverse relationship in rising polar interrogatives.  For  these  polarity  questions,  the  speaker  cannot  commit  to the truth of the proposition because they face a choice of an exhaustive set of propositions ({p, ¬p}). Furthermore, the speaker engages the addressee to resolve the issue under negotiation. Th is  confi  guration of commitment and engagement originates in a lack of evidence, which leads to a dependence of the speaker on the addressee in terms of their beliefs. Assertions have the opposite confi  guration, since here, the speaker has suffi cient evidence to commit to a proposition and does not depend on the addressee for a verifi  cation of their beliefs (see Gunlogson 2008).

Questions with interrogative clause type and rising SFI have contexts of use that are defi  ned by a clear asymmetry in knowledge between speaker and addressee.  Likewise,  assertions  with  declarative  clause  type  and  falling  SFI are  also  defi  ned  by  this  asymmetry,  albeit  here  the  asymmetry  is  reversed. In  the  default  case,  assertions  are  uttered  in  contexts  in  which  the  speaker assumes that they know something that the addressee does not know. Rising polar interrogatives are licensed in contexts in which the speaker assumes that the addressee can supply the information that the speaker does not have at the  point  of  utterance.  Of  course,  there  are  contexts  in  which  we  ask  such questions although it turns out that the addressee cannot supply an answer. Likewise, there are contexts in which we assert a belief that the other person already shares. If this was unknown to the speaker, the addressee will let the speaker know that their assumptions about the initial knowledge asymmetry was wrong. Our model only captures the simplest case, but we assume that this corresponds to assumptions about the normal course of a conversation that speakers and addressee share. Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs (1986: 33) capture this assumption with the 'principle of least collaborative eff  ort':

- (12) Principle of least collaborative eff  ort :  In  conversation,  the  participants try to minimize their collaborative eff  ort - the work that both do from the initiation of each contribution to its mutual acceptance.

Response

[+coin]

ResponseP

ENGAGEMENT

We assume that the principle of collaborative eff  ort only holds for assertions as well as questions with an interrogative word order because here, the formand function mapping follows grammaticalized conventions.

Rising polar interrogatives serve well to demonstrate how syntax mediates between the diff  erent ingredients that are used to compose speech acts. We assume  that  commitment  and  engagement  are  hosted  in  the  interactional structure: Commitment captures the grounding of a belief and therefore is realized  in  GroundP;  engagement  captures  the  response  expectation  and therefore is realized in ResponseP . Syntax mediates the contents of ResponseP , GroundP, and CP, where the latter hosts the propositional content, or sentence radical (Lewis 1972). We here assume the blueprint of the USH: two abstract arguments (such as times, events, and in the case at hand propositions and the interlocutor's grounds) are related by a coincidence feature ([ u coin]). We saw  above  that  the  USH  assumes  a  universal  architecture  of  hierarchically structured functions. Th e coincidence feature is at the core of how arguments are related to each other. For rising polarity questions this translates into a positive value ([+coin]) for engagement and to a negative value ([-coin]) for commitment, because the speaker cannot publicly commit to a proposition. Th erefore they engage the addressee to resolve the choice between alternative propositions. In other words, the speaker's ground does not coincide with the propositional  content.  Instead,  it  is  the  addressee's  ground  which  needs  to coincide with the propositional content.

## (13) Syntactic confi  guration of rising polar interrogatives

<!-- image -->

For  polarity  questions  and  assertions,  we  can  summarize  the  possible confi  gurations  of  commitment  and  engagement  as  in  Figure  7.  Th ese confi  gurations  largely  correspond  to  the  simplifi  ed  mapping  of  form  and function we saw in previous accounts, repeated below as Figure 6 for ease of comparison.

T

+

1

Engagement INTT

Question

INTI

INT

Commitment

···

DECT

Figure 6: form-function mapping

| Assertion DECI   |
|------------------|
| DEC +            |

Figure 7: function-form mapping

## 5. Deconstructing other phenomena associated with questionhood

All other questions introduced in (1) and (2) above have confi  gurations of commitment and  engagement  that  are  not  inversely  related  to  each  other. We  thereby  build  on  the  insight  from  Beyssade  &  Marandin  (2007)  that engagement is independent of commitment, which helps us to address the apparent  incompatibility  with  a  call-on-addressee  (to  respond,  confi  rm,  or affi rm) with a public commitment to the truth of the proposition. In terms of their form this corresponds to confi  gurations with interrogative clausetype and  falling  SFI  or  declarative  clause  type  with  rising  SFI.  So  how  can  we model the conversational eff  ects of all the questions in (1) and (2)? Instead of  distinguishing  only  positive  and  negative  valuations  of  the  coincidence feature, we assume that, unlike propositional structure, interactional structure also allows for unvalued coincidence features. Th is assumption is necessary, because  some  questions  come  with  a  biased  or  incomplete  commitment. Consider the examples in (14), repeated from (1) and (2) above.

<!-- formula-not-decoded -->

b. She won? (L* H-H%)

Th e example in (14)a is a typical content question. Th e majority of content questions  occur  with  a  fall  and  therefore  contrast  with  polarity  questions, which  standardly  occur  with  a  rise  (Hedberg et  al .  2017).  Example  (14) b is a declarative question, which also does not fi  t the unmarked encoding of  questions.  Both  of  these  questions  can  neither  be  characterized  by  full commitment  nor  by  no  commitment.  In  content  questions,  most  of  the content is taken for granted except for the information captured by the whpronoun. In (14)a, it is presupposed that 'somebody won' (Ginzburg 2004), but the speaker cannot commit to an identifi  cation of the agent of winning because they lack this information. Th e evidential basis of open propositions, as in (14)a, do not allow the speaker to mark the type of commitment because the speaker cannot publicly commit to a proposition that misses information. Th e speaker may well be in the position to presuppose the truth a proposition that  misses  the  information  marked by the wh-pronoun, but this does not qualify the speaker to commit to it publicly. At the same time, the fact that the speaker is presupposing the truth of some of the information suggest that the speaker has some knowledge relevant to the utterance. Hence, it makes sense to allow for some middle ground between committing and not committing to the truth of a proposition.

Declarative questions, as in (14)b, also come  with  an  unmarked commitment, albeit for a diff  erent reason. Both in content questions and in declarative questions, the speaker does not have suffi cient evidence to allow them to publicly commit to a proposition. In declarative questions, however, the speaker is biased and no particular piece of information is missing. Although neither question in (14) allows the speaker to make a public commitment they both lack some evidence of the truth of a closed proposition - they diff  er in their type of engagement. In a content question, the addressee signals with the request not to engage that the truth of the proposition 'somebody won' is presupposed. Hence, the speaker of (14)a does not engage the addressee to resolve a choice between propositional alternatives. Th e missing information is suffi ciently encoded by the wh-pronoun which requires the addressee to fi  ll in that variable (due to standard conversational principles) and makes a diff  erent form of engagement redundant. Th e response requirement that we associate with content questions and other types of questions arises from the unmarked commitment, not from the particular type of engagement. In (14)b, however, the addressee is clearly engaged with the choice of propositional alternatives: either the referent won, or she did not. Th e bias toward the alternative that she won arises due to the declarative clause type which is standardly associated with assertions (e.g. Gunlogson 2003, 2008, Krifk   a 2015, Farkas & Roelofson 2017).  Interrogative  word  order  always  points  to  the  presence  of  a  choice between propositional alternatives.

With the addition of an unmarked feature confi  guration for commitment, which has an equivalent confi  guration for engagement in the context of a range of declaratives, the mapping of commitment and engagement has become a lot more complex. We not only have three diff  erent types of commitment and engagement;  we  also  have  confi  gurations  of  commitment  and  engagement which  are  no  longer  in  an  inverse  relation.  For  falling  content  questions and rising declarative questions, unmarked commitment combines with no engagement or full engagement, respectively. For the other questions in (1) and  (2),  we  fi  nd  further  confi  gurations  of  commitment  and  engagement, predicted by the system we have now in place. Th is includes the remaining questions repeated here as (15).

| (15)   | a. ShewonWHAT ↑          | (L*+H H-H%)   |
|--------|--------------------------|---------------|
|        | b. Who won (again) ↑     | (L* H-H%)     |
|        | c. Did she win or lose ↓ | (H* L-L%)     |

Th e  example in (15)a is a so-called echo question whose content is treated as  given  except  for  the  contrastively-marked  element  (Artstein  2002,  Reis 2017).  Echo  questions  come  with  a  full  commitment  to  an  alternative  to what has been proposed in the previous turn. If the stress falls on the whpronoun,  this  alternative  is  not  specifi  ed  (i.e.  'She  won  something  else'  in (15)a). Th is  assumption is compatible with the view that content questions address  an  unrestricted  set  of  propositional  alternatives  (see  above).  If  the contrastive stress fall on a diff  erent constituent, this alternative is specifi  ed to not include that constituent (i.e. 'She won not X'). Th is public commitment to an alternative is paired with an engagement of the addressee, because the proposition is contrasted with a non-exhaustive set of alternatives (diff  ering in only the possible referents of the wh-pronoun). Example (15)b is a rising content question whose context of use reintroduces the engagement towards the propositional choices and therefore combines the unmarked commitment with full engagement. As a consequence, its function is similar to that of an echo-question - albeit with a diff  erent type of commitment. Example (15)c is an alternative question whose content is defi  ned by a set of alternatives (winning vs. losing). As with content questions, the truth of the open proposition 'she did something' is presupposed. Contrary to a content question, however, the set of alternatives is exhaustively listed. Correspondingly, the speaker cannot publicly commit to a proposition because they are confronted with a fi  xed choice. At the same time, the speaker does not engage the addressee in the truth  of  the  open  proposition.  Th e  response  requirement  arises  from  the presence of alternatives, which is exhaustively listed here. Th e interrogative word-order is another marker of the presence of alternatives, as in the case of content questions.

With the integration of the examples of (15) into the deconstruction of questions into their types of commitment and engagement, we complete our analysis  of  the  diff  erent  types  of  questions.  Th e  resulting  mapping  is  a  lot more complex than a mapping that is based on the typical question/assertion distinctions based on clause type and SFI.

At the syntactic level,  however,  the  addition  of  unmarked  commitment leads to less complexity. For content questions, for instance, the unmarked commitment translates into an unvalued coincidence feature. Th is results in the lack of coincidence between the propositional content and the speaker's ground (see Heim & Wiltschko in press for details).

We conclude our discussion of the conversational eff  ects of questions with the overview of their confi  gurations in Table 1.

Table 1: Conversational eff  ects of diff  erent types of questions

| Question    | Commitment   | Engagement   | Effect          |
|-------------|--------------|--------------|-----------------|
| Polarity    | none         | full         | Resolve p v. -p |
| Declarative | unmarked     | full         | Resolve p       |
| Echo        | full         | full         | Confirm p       |
| Content     | unmarked     | none         | Accept P-x      |
| Alternative | none         | none         | Accept p v. q   |

## 6. Encoding commitment and engagement

So far, we have not addressed the original motivation for the syntactization of speech acts. Th e previous sections have focussed on the eff  ects of questions, which we decomposed into diff  erent types of commitment and engagement. Th e  encoding  of  these  variables  is  what  we  discuss  in  the  remainder  of this  paper.  We  build  on  the  analysis  of  response  and  discourse  particles  as illustrated  in  Figure  10  (see  Heim  &  Wiltschko  2016,  Wiltschko  2017,  to appear, for details). Th ese particles can be decomposed into their grounding and response properties, which are encoded by the particles in combination with intonation. For questions that occur without particles, we assume that both commitment and engagement are encoded via intonation.

To derive  the  shape  of  the  sentence-fi  nal  contour,  syntax  computes  the information in ResponseP and GroundP, which corresponds to the duration and  the  pitch  excursion  of  the  SFI,  respectively.  Th e  coincidence  features determine  the  corresponding  types  of  commitment  and  engagement.  For rising  intonation,  duration  negatively  correlates  with  commitment  and excursion positively correlates with engagement (see Fletcher & Loakes 2010, Tomlinson  &  Fox-Tree  2011,  and  Heim  2019b for  quantifi  able  evidence). For  falling  intonation,  the  encoding  seems  to  be  reversed:  longer  duration corresponds  to  greater  engagement  and  lower  excursion  corresponds  to greater commitment (Heim 2019b). Th is inverse may well be the consequence of the physiological properties of prosody (Vassiere 2005) since a continuation of relaxing or straining of the vocal cords may be the most economical way to call for the addressee's attention. While both excursion and duration contribute to the encoding of interaction, their eff  ects can be clearly separated. Figure 8 visualizes how commitment and engagement map unto the prosodic variables of  excursion  and  duration  in  the  context  of  rising  declaratives.  A  decrease Engagement

-

It's

-

Duration

in excursion correlates with a smaller sense of engagement. An increase in duration  correlates  with  a  greater  sense  of  commitment.  Th is  explains,  for instance, the diff  erent addressee activation in low- vs. high-rising declaratives and why high-rising questions are oft  en associated with insecurity.

ra

ining.

Commitment

Figure 8: Mapping of commitment and engagement in rising declaratives

<!-- image -->

Syntax,  then,  serves  to  mediate  between  intonation  and  clause  type  in  a more complex way than is predicted from a simple fall/rise and declarative/ interrogative  distinction.  Th e  complexity  in  function  has  a  corresponding complexity  in form. Th   e representation in (16), which  visualizes the computation of the valuations of [ u coin] in ResponseP and GroundP, matches the representation of the prosodic variation of rising declaratives in Figure 9. Depending on the feature valuation of [ u coin] in GroundP, the duration of the rise is either long ([-coin]), short ([+coin]) or somewhere in-between if [ u coin] remains unvalued. Th e equivalent holds for of [ u coin] in ResponseP. Th e excursion of the rise is either low ([-coin]), high ([+coin]) or somewhere in-between  if  [ u coin]  remains  unvalued.  Syntax  serves  to  combine  the information about pitch duration and excursion (encoding commitment and engagement) to manipulate the shape of the sentence-fi  nal tune.

Response(A)

+coin = high

-coin = low ResponseP

IT

## (16) S  yntactic mediation of forms and functions for speech acts with rising intonation

Ground(s)

+coin = short

-coin = long

<!-- image -->

All  the  speech  acts  associated  commonly  with  the  notion  of  questionhood are  therefore  complex  speech  acts  that  communicate  the  speaker  attitude, the  expectation  toward  the  addressee  on  how  to  respond,  and  a  choice  of diff  erent propositional alternatives. Since both commitment and engagement aff  ect the shape of SFI, a syntactic integration of these variables is necessary to explain their relation to each other and to the propositional content. Speech acts  are  an  interface  phenomenon  because  morphosyntactic  and  prosodic information are linked to the interlocutors for their interpretation. Th ere is a long tradition in syntactic analysis to recognize the importance of integrating discourse phenomena (e.g. Ross 1970, Rizzi 1997) and the present account is an advancement of this tradition that gives greater importance to the role of the interlocutors in deriving the meaning of utterances.

## 7.  Questions do not form a natural class; assertions do not either

We have argued for a deconstruction of questions into diff  erent confi  gurations of  commitment and engagement. We have demonstrated that questions, at least those that are standardly treated in formal linguistic accounts, do not form a natural class - not in form, not in function, and not in their mappings of  form  and  function.  We  can  use  the  same  variables  to  model  questions, assertions,  and  speech  acts  that  share  characteristics  of  both.  All  of  these speech  acts  communicate  whether  the  speaker  is  ready  to  commit  to  the truth  of  a  proposition  in  public  and  whether  they  expect  the  addressee  to provide a resolution to a propositional choice. What we standardly describe as questions (which really only fi  ts the eff  ects of polarity questions) can therefore be  paraphrased  with  'I  cannot  commit  to  either  p  or  ¬p  and  I  expect  you to  resolve  that  choice' . Since no specifi  c  confi  guration  or  type  is  unique  to Engagement

+

INTT

DEC

17

INT

"1

DECT

XPT

questions or assertions, we argue that these speech act categories need to be reconceptualized  independent  from  a  question/assertion  distinction.  Th e gain  from  such  an  analysis  is  a  broader  concept  of  speech  acts  that  allows us  to  compare  the  eff  ects  of  questions  and  assertions  independently  of their clause types. Th e free combination of the degrees of commitment and engagement also allows us to derive the eff  ects of a declarative with a highrise  contour  (Dec ↗ ),  declaratives  with  a  rise-fall-rise  contour  (Dec ↓ ↗ ) and declaratives or interrogatives with a continuation rise (XP ↗ ).  Figure 9 summarizes the combinations of commitment and engagement as predicted by the confi  gurations allowed by the coincidence features in ResponseP and GroundP.

Figure 9: Extending the account to declaratives not associated with questions

Th e extension of the account to non-questions is based on the same variables that we used for the deconstruction of questions. Th is extension is possible because intonation plays a key role in encoding commitment and engagement in English. Th e range of speech acts captured by our analysis surpasses any inventory of previous speech act accounts that rely on a direct mapping of form and function. So, despite the intuitive nature of the terms of questions and assertions, we propose that these terms refer to a range of conversational phenomena whose eff  ects are best captured by the variables of commitment and engagement.

## Notes

- 1 We  thank  the  audience  of  the  Given!  workshop  at  UBC  in  honor  of  Michael Rochemont, members of UBC's eh lab , and the audience of the special workshop on speech acts at SPE 10 for their helpful feedback.
- 2 Th e data discussed here largely corresponds to those in the literature concerned with the syntactic and prosodic form of speech acts (e.g. Bartels 1997, Gunlogson 2003, Truckenbrodt 2012, Farkas & Roelofsen 2017).
- 3 We refer the reader to Wiltschko & Heim in press for a treatment of tag questions, which builds on the same variables, commitment, and engagement.
- 4 Others have argued for a non-exhaustive set of response possibilities (e.g. Biezma & Rawlins 2012).
- 5 Th e possibility of cancellation is the root of notable disagreemt the literature on how to defi  ne the nature or presumed knowledge: Katz and Postal 1964; Karttunen & Peters 1976; and Comorovski 1996 argue for an implicature; and Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984; Ginzburg 2004 for a presupposition.
- 6 One anonymous reviewer suggested that examples 3b and 3c are meta-communicative expressives whose interpretation is owed to the high tones of the fi  nal contour. While we agree that both phenomena have a meta-communicative function they nevertheless need to be accounted for in a typology of questions. Just as (4) a, these questions are variants of so-called echo questions whose relation to other questions is frequently discussed (Bolinger 1957; Blakemore 1984; Ginzburg & Sag 2000; Sobin 1990, 2010, Arstein 2002; Reis 2017). To exclude them from our analysis would not do justice to the range of functions that questions may bear.
- 7 Alternatives in falling polarity questions are similarly complementary. Hedberg et al. (2017) present the following corpus example: 'Yes or no answer. Will Michael Bloomberg be able to fi  ll Giuliani's shoes?' . Just as the example in (4)c, this corpus example ends in a fall. Complementary alternatives are not exclusive to polarity questions. Bartel's (1997) example Do I turn right or left  ? is just as complementary as our example in (4)c.
- 8 Th   is is in the spirit of Frege's (1884) principle of contextuality according to which the meaning of a word can only be understood in the context of a sentence, not in isolation. Th is principle is widely acknowledged in the functional tradition while in the generative tradition, it is Frege's principle of compositionality which is typically modelled. Wiltschko's 2014 approach explicitly tries to bridge these two traditions by building function into syntactic structure.
- 9 We treat  declarative  questions  separately  from  so-called  echo  questions  due  to their  diff  erent  prosodic  profi  le.  Echo  questions  mandatorily  include  contrastive stress on a constituent or morpheme (Reis 2017). Th e rise can also begin much earlier  in  the  sentence,  which  has  led  some  researchers  to  postulate  a  diff  erent analysis of the nuclear tune, i.e. L+H* H-H% (Sobin 1990; Artstein 2002) instead of a L* H-H% contour (Bartels 1997).
- 10 We are grateful for the comment of an anonymous reviewer that the bias may arise on behalf of the addressee if the rising declaratives echoes a previous assertion. We submit that this is the case in echo questions, which have diff  erent types of commitment. Echo questions do not express a bias; they express a disbelief.
- 11 For a more detailed motivation of the integration of speech acts into the domain of syntax, see Speas & Tenny 2003, Hill 2007, Hageman & Hill 2013, Wiltschko & Heim 2016, Heim & Wiltschko, in press and Wiltschko to appear.

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