RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Gunlogson, Christine YR 2008 T1 A question of commitment JF Belgian Journal of Linguistics VO 22 IS 1 SP 101 OP 136 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.22.06gun PB John Benjamins SN 0774-5141, AB This paper addresses certain restrictions on the use of declaratives as questions in English. Declaratives are taken to express commitment by the speaker, even in a questioning use. The analysis traces the restrictions to two distinct contextual factors: (i) a general principle requiring that a commitment have a recognized source, i.e., a discourse agent who plausibly has independent evidence supporting the content committed to; (ii) specific to a questioning interpretation, the need for the context to support the inference that the speaker’s commitment depends upon the addressee’s anticipated confirmation. Rising intonation contributes a very general element of meaning, indicating that the utterance it marks is contingent upon some discourse condition obtaining; the specific conditions required for a questioning interpretation instantiate one such type of contingency. The proposals are modeled via elaboration of standard contextual structures in a possible-worlds framework., UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/bjl.22.06gun