Alternatives to QUD
Alternatives to questions
The paper critically examines some central principles of the Question Under Discussion (QUD) framework and ultimately explores the concept of ‘question’, central to QUD-models. It demonstrates how fine-grained, interactionally informed analyses of language-specific categories can reveal building blocks of interaction and explain the sources of the observed information- and discourse-structuring interpretations (such as update, contrast and more). Employing data from Anal Naga (Trans-Himalayan, India), it proceeds to a fine-grained analysis of the notion of ‘question’. The decomposition of ‘questions’ into smaller building blocks similarly reveals how diverse categories and discourse processes can trigger the interpretation of an information request. These findings and additional theoretical arguments suggest that QUD-models are problematic for various reasons: such models are non-parsimonious as they add superfluous extra layers to explain the observations; the explanatory apparatus is circular, as the extra layers are derived from within the explananda but regarded as underlying explanatory factors; and the models gloss over the actual factors by channelling them into cover terms prematurely regarded as primitive. Finally, since ‘question’ does not constitute a primitive concept but is a product of diverse discourse processes, discourse cannot be modelled on this foundation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical problems with QUD
- 2.1Introduction
- 2.2Circularity of implicit QUDs
- 2.3QUD and sentence structure
- 2.4QUD and discourse structure
- 2.5Conclusion
- 3.What makes a question
- 3.1Questions, interrogatives and responsive action
- 3.2Questions in Anal Naga
- 3.2.1Language background and data
- 3.2.2Cooperation-seeking intonation
- 3.2.2.1Phatic usage
- 3.2.2.2Hedged imperatives
- 3.2.2.3Turn-taking
- 3.2.2.4Negotiated discourse structuring
- 3.2.2.5Summary
- 3.2.3Interactional particles
- 3.2.3.1Directive =vo/ve
- 3.2.3.2Tag-markers =no/ne/na
- 3.2.3.3Expectational-epistemic =mo/me
- 3.2.3.4Interactional particles – summary
- 3.2.4‘Wh’-words
- 3.3What makes a question: Ask not how questions construct discourse, ask how inter-action constructs ‘questions’
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
- Non-standard abbreviations
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References