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Article published In: Discourse-pragmatic perspectives on interrogatives
Edited by Malte Rosemeyer
[Functions of Language 29:1] 2022
► pp. 25–57

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A contrastive perspective on French and Italian wh-in situ questions

A discourse-pragmatic approach

 | University of Zurich | ZHAW
Published online: 15 February 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.00037.gar
Abstract
This paper offers a qualitative and quantitative analysis of French and Italian wh-in situ questions based on spontaneous spoken data. A pragmatic analysis relying on two parameters, propositional activation and pragmatic functions, reveals that the licensing conditions and the use of this structure largely differ in the two languages. While French wh-in situ do not require an activated proposition and can introduce a discourse-new topic, Italian wh-in situ mostly require an activated proposition and, at least in the analyzed corpus data, do not introduce discourse-new topics. An examination of the context also reveals that the different licensing conditions influence the interactional uses of these questions. All in all, both French and Italian wh-in situ require a pragmatic condition, which is their ‘anchoring’ to given, or at least inferable, information in the linguistic context (as is typical of Italian) or to predictable situations in the extralinguistic context (such as expected discourse moves in social interactions, as is the case for French).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.French and Italian in situ
  • 3.Research questions and discourse parameters
    • 3.1Research questions
    • 3.2Activation of the proposition
    • 3.3Pragmatic functions of in situ questions
  • 4.Corpus analysis
    • 4.1The corpus
    • 4.2Quantitative analysis
      • 4.2.1The frequency of in situ questions in French and Italian
      • 4.2.2The activation of p
      • 4.2.3The pragmatic functions of in situ questions
    • 4.3A brief look at ex situ questions in French and Italian
      • 4.3.1The activation of p in ex situ questions
      • 4.3.2The pragmatic functions of ex situ questions
  • 5.Information-seeking in situ and discourse structure
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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