Wondering hopefully/fearfully: How do desires and inquisitive attitudes interact?

Abstract

We describe a novel interpretive difference between x wonders hopefully ?p and x wonders fearfully ?p, where the former is only compatible with x hoping p, but the latter, with x either fearing p or not p. Extending a goal-based analysis of root polar questions by Tabatowski (2022) to embedding under inquisitive predicates, we argue that this difference arises due to hopefully imposing general constraints on an agent’s goals, in particular on their attitudes in entertaining questions, that fearfully does not.