Open AccessResponsive predicates are question-embedding: evidence from Estonian
Author(s) -
Tom Roberts
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.496
Subject(s) - estonian , interrogative word , interrogative , linguistics , polysemy , semantics (computer science) , complement (music) , computer science , meaning (existential) , literal (mathematical logic) , artificial intelligence , natural language processing , epistemology , philosophy , programming language , biochemistry , chemistry , complementation , phenotype , gene
The proper semantic treatment of the complements of Responsive Predicates (ResPs),those predicates which may embed either declarative or interrogative clauses, is a longstandingpuzzle, given standard assumptions about complement selection. In order to avoidpositing systematic polysemy for ResPs, typical treatments of ResP complements treat theirarguments either as uniformly declarative-like (propositional) or interrogative-like (question).I shed new light on this question with novel data from Estonian, in which there are verbsthink-like meanings with declarative complements and wonder-like meanings with interrogativecomplements. I argue that these verbs’ meaning is fundamentally incompatible with aproposition-taking semantics for ResPs, and therefore a question-taking semantics is to be preferred.Keywords: responsive predicates, embedded clauses, interrogatives, contemplation, Estonian.