ABSTRACT
So far we have reached an understanding of the non-neutrality of declaratives that accounts for impphrtant aspects of their interpretation. The challenge that remains is accounting for the questioning use of rising declaratives. Under the propphsal advanced in the previous section, rising declaratives update the Addressee’s commitment set. Although the bias of rising declaratives becomes comprehensible on this view, it is not obvious on the face of it why a move by the Speaker to update to the Addressee’s commitments should naturally be interpreted as questioning. Nor, it turns out, is the characterization of declarative bias sufficient to account for all the restrictions on their use as questions. In this chapter I’ll document the additional restrictions on use and connect them to the questioning use of rising declaratives. I show how the questioning use of rising declaratives can be derived, together with the restrictions, from the account of their meaning already given, together with certain assumptions about questioning.
