Abstract
We conducted an experiment to examine the comprehension of interrogatives such as Could you make the pencil roll?, which can be intended as yes-no questions, as directives to perform an action, or as both. Clark (1979) has claimed that the comprehension of such sentences is governed by, among other things, the answer obviousness rule; that is, listeners are more likely to interpret such a sentence as a question if the question posed is non-obvious to the speaker. One purpose of the present experiment was to test Clark's claim. A second purpose was to begin identifying the types of contextual information listeners use in comprehending speech acts. The final purpose was to provide data relevant to the controversy about whether listeners evaluate the syntactically direct, literal meaning of a sentence in the course of arriving at a syntactically indirect interpretation. We found that listeners follow an answer obviousness rule, utilize their knowledge of objects and the actions they allow as context for sentence interpretation, and do sometimes evaluate the syntactically direct reading of a sentence before arriving at an indirect speech act.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 189-203 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Language and Speech |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1989 |
| Externally published | Yes |
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Keywords
- comprehension
- context
- interrogatives
- speech acts
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Linguistics and Language
- Sociology and Political Science
- Language and Linguistics
- Speech and Hearing
Cite this
Identifying speech acts from contextual and linguistic information. / Abbeduto, Leonard J; Furman, Laurie; Davies, Betty.
In: Language and Speech, Vol. 32, No. 3, 1989, p. 189-203.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying speech acts from contextual and linguistic information
AU - Abbeduto, Leonard J
AU - Furman, Laurie
AU - Davies, Betty
PY - 1989
Y1 - 1989
N2 - We conducted an experiment to examine the comprehension of interrogatives such as Could you make the pencil roll?, which can be intended as yes-no questions, as directives to perform an action, or as both. Clark (1979) has claimed that the comprehension of such sentences is governed by, among other things, the answer obviousness rule; that is, listeners are more likely to interpret such a sentence as a question if the question posed is non-obvious to the speaker. One purpose of the present experiment was to test Clark's claim. A second purpose was to begin identifying the types of contextual information listeners use in comprehending speech acts. The final purpose was to provide data relevant to the controversy about whether listeners evaluate the syntactically direct, literal meaning of a sentence in the course of arriving at a syntactically indirect interpretation. We found that listeners follow an answer obviousness rule, utilize their knowledge of objects and the actions they allow as context for sentence interpretation, and do sometimes evaluate the syntactically direct reading of a sentence before arriving at an indirect speech act.
AB - We conducted an experiment to examine the comprehension of interrogatives such as Could you make the pencil roll?, which can be intended as yes-no questions, as directives to perform an action, or as both. Clark (1979) has claimed that the comprehension of such sentences is governed by, among other things, the answer obviousness rule; that is, listeners are more likely to interpret such a sentence as a question if the question posed is non-obvious to the speaker. One purpose of the present experiment was to test Clark's claim. A second purpose was to begin identifying the types of contextual information listeners use in comprehending speech acts. The final purpose was to provide data relevant to the controversy about whether listeners evaluate the syntactically direct, literal meaning of a sentence in the course of arriving at a syntactically indirect interpretation. We found that listeners follow an answer obviousness rule, utilize their knowledge of objects and the actions they allow as context for sentence interpretation, and do sometimes evaluate the syntactically direct reading of a sentence before arriving at an indirect speech act.
KW - comprehension
KW - context
KW - interrogatives
KW - speech acts
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84970257685&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84970257685&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/002383098903200301
DO - 10.1177/002383098903200301
M3 - Article
VL - 32
SP - 189
EP - 203
JO - Language and Speech
JF - Language and Speech
SN - 0023-8309
IS - 3
ER -