Prosody and the interpretation of tag questions

Abstract

We provide an account of the alignment of linguistic form and discourse function with respect to English tag questions, adopting as a formal framework Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. SDRT models the discourse function of utterances via their rhetorical connection to the antecedent discourse. We pay particular attention to the prosodic features of tag questions and their contribution to interpretation. This approach to tag questions is appropriate, we argue, as the interpretation of a tag comes down to its rhetorical connection to the host sentence.

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