Section 1 provides a brief summary of the pair-list literature singling out some points that are particularly relevant for the coming discussion. -/- Section 2 shows that the dilemma of quantifi cation versus domain restriction arises only in extensional complement interrogatives. In matrix questions and in intensional complements only universals support pairlist readings, whence the simplest domain restriction treatment suffices. Related data including conjunction, disjunction, and cumulative readings are discussed -/- Section 3 argues that in the case of extensional complements (...) the domain restriction treatment is inadequate for at least two independent reasons. One has to do with the fact that not only upward monotonic quantifi ers support pairlist readings, and the other with the derivation of apparent scope out readings. The reasoning is supplemented with some discussion of the semantic properties of layered quantifi ers.  The above will establish the need for quantifi cation, so the question arises how the objections explicitly enlisted in the literature against quantifi cation can be answered. Section 4 considers the de dicto reading of the quantifi er s restriction, quanti cational variability, and the absence of pairlist readings with whether questions, and argues that they need not militate against the quanti ficational analysis. -/- Section 5 summarizes the emergent proposal -/- Finally, section 6 discusses the signifi cance of the above findings for the behavior of weak islands. (shrink)

Why do we ask questions? Because we want tohave some information. But why this particular kind ofinformation? Because only information of this particularkind is helpful to resolve the decision problemthat the agent faces. In this paper I argue thatquestions are asked because their answers help toresolve the questioner's decision problem, and that thisassumption helps us to interpret interrogativesentences. Interrogative sentences are claimed to have asemantically underspecified meaning and thisunderspecification is resolved by means of the decisionproblem.

In this paper we reexamine the question of whether questions areinherently intensional entities. We do so by proposing a novelextensional theory of questions, based on a re-interpretation of thedomain of t as a bilattice rather than the usual booleaninterpretation. We discuss the adequacy of our theory with respect tothe adequacy criteria imposed on the semantics of questionsby (Groenendijk and Stokhof 1997). We show that the theory is able to account in astraightforward manner for some complex issues in the semantics ofquestions (...) including coordinated questions, combined indicative andinterrogative sentences, questions with quantifiers, and theimpossibility of negating questions. (shrink)

W. Labov's & T. Labov's findings concerning their child grammar acquisition ("Learning the Syntax of Questions" in Recent Advances in the Psychology of Language, Campbell, R. & Smith, P. Eds, New York: Plenum Press, 1978) are interpreted in terms of different semantics of why & other wh-questions. Z. Dubiel.