Analyzing naturally-sourced Questions Under Discussion

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.3.5828

Keywords:

pragmatics, question under discussion, discourse structure, question similarity

Abstract

The Question Under Discussion (QUD) framework of discourse has been a highly influential theoretical device in many accounts of various pragmatic phenomena, yet there has been comparatively little work assessing the extent to which the QUD can be reliably inferred from naturalistic contexts. In this paper, we focus primarily on measuring the variability across individuals in QUD inference, while also verifying other related, commonly held assumptions about QUD theory. To this end, we collect QUDs from many theoretically naive subjects tasked with processing a radio interview utterance by utterance. We consider various analyses designed to address the problem of measuring question similarity. Overall, we find that there exists moderate variability among subjects, consistent with possibly the insufficiency of context in determining QUD, or possibly also the simultaneous coexistence of multiple valid QUDs. To more adequately tease apart these possibilities, we also propose additional analyses for addressing the issue of question identity.

Author Biography

  • Karl Mulligan, Johns Hopkins University
    Graduate student in Cognitive Science

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Published

2025-01-24

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Section

Articles