Modelling the question-statement opposition in Slavic languages (QueSlav)

斯拉夫语言中疑问句对立的建模（QueSlav）

• 批准号: 452148050
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Roland Meyer
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/452148050?language=en
• 关键词: Modelling; question; statement; opposition; Slavic

The area of polar questions and their kin -- different types of bias and rhetorical questions -- has recently been intensively discussed in theoretical and experimental semantics and pragmatics. The QueSlav project hopes to contribute to this debate by looking at the complex empirical landscape offered by Slavic languages. The strategies used for encoding the distinction between statements and polar questions come from a variety of grammatical areas -- from syntax and morphology, through discourse and modal particles, to prosody and intonation. There is considerable intra- and cross-linguistic variation in how these different strategies are used, whether they are obligatory or optional, and what kinds of meanings they give rise to. The matter is further complicated by the existence of borderline cases such as declarative questions (questions with a declarative form), rhetorical questions (statements with an interrogative form), and bias questions (expressing speaker's answer expectations). The project focuses on languages which, despite their genealogical closeness, make use of a whole range of question-encoding strategies, including sentence-initial verb/auxiliary placement (Czech), use of particles (Polish, Russian), placement of prosodic prominence on the verb (Russian), and use of boundary tones (all languages). In addition, the languages under investigation have a rich repertoire of discourse particles, polarity items, and question tags which are often sensitive to the statement--question (or declarative--interrogative) distinction, as well as different bias inferences, and which can be exploited for diagnosing the relevant properties of the investigated utterance/sentence types. Our leading research question is whether the type of form used for the expression of polar or bias meanings influences the conveyed semantics and pragmatics. According to the null hypothesis, question semantics is universal. The competing hypothesis we put forth is that the type of form correlates with different semantics. Syntactic strategies -- which are by assumption more deeply entrenched in the grammatical system -- lead to more specified semantics than prosodic strategies, which in turn exhibit stronger reliance on pragmatic and contextual cues. Polar questions are thus used as a window into the general issue of the semantics--pragmatics divide. Our approach to addressing the theoretical question is distinctly empirical. We plan on a series of experimental studies of acceptability, offline and online management of polar questions, their answers, and their contextual bias. Besides informing current theories, we wish to attain a better understanding of polar question formation and bias in questions in Slavic, to foster experimental semantic/pragmatic methods in general and to contribute to a more adequate cross-linguistic typology of polar questions.

极性问题及其同类领域——不同类型的偏见和反问句——最近在理论和实验语义学和语用学中得到了深入的讨论。 QueSlav 项目希望通过研究斯拉夫语言提供的复杂经验景观来为这场辩论做出贡献。用于编码陈述和极性问题之间区别的策略来自各种语法领域——从句法和词法，到语篇和情态助词，再到韵律和语调。这些不同策略的使用方式、它们是强制性的还是可选的、以及它们产生什么样的含义，在语言内和跨语言方面存在相当大的差异。由于诸如陈述性问题（具有陈述性形式的问题）、反问性问题（具有疑问性形式的陈述）和偏见性问题（表达说话者的答案期望）等边缘情况的存在，问题变得更加复杂。该项目重点关注的语言，尽管它们的谱系密切，但利用了一系列问题编码策略，包括句子开头动词/助动词的放置（捷克语）、助词的使用（波兰语、俄语）、动词上韵律突出的放置（俄语）以及边界声调的使用（所有语言）。此外，所研究的语言具有丰富的话语助词、极性项和问题标签，它们通常对陈述-问题（或陈述-疑问）区别以及不同的偏见推论敏感，并且可用于诊断所研究的话语/句子类型的相关属性。我们的主要研究问题是用于表达极性或偏见意义的形式类型是否会影响所传达的语义和语用。根据原假设，问题语义是普遍的。我们提出的相互竞争的假设是，形式的类型与不同的语义相关。句法策略——根据假设在语法系统中更加根深蒂固——比韵律策略产生更具体的语义，而韵律策略反过来又表现出对语用和语境线索的更强依赖。因此，极性问题被用作了解语义学一般问题——语用学鸿沟的窗口。我们解决理论问题的方法显然是经验性的。我们计划对极性问题的可接受性、离线和在线管理、它们的答案以及它们的上下文偏差进行一系列实验研究。除了为当前的理论提供信息之外，我们还希望更好地理解斯拉夫语中极地问题的形成和问题偏见，以培养一般的实验语义/语用方法，并为极地问题的更充分的跨语言类型学做出贡献。