The Meaning and Use of Negative Polar Interrogatives

Abstract

On the standard theory of interrogative meaning, the denotation of a question is the set of propositions comprising its direct answers; so negative polar interrogatives (NIs) like Isn’t Jane coming? are predicted to be equivalent to positive polar interrogatives (PIs) like Is Jane coming? While this prediction is correct in so as far simple yes and no answers to PIs and NIs always express the same proposition, they diverge in important respects. First, NIs are typically biased toward a specific answer. Furthermore, NIs are ambiguous in the sense that the bias may be either toward the positive or negative answer (Ladd, 1981).

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