The Question of ? : A Comment on Urs Egli

By Jaakko HINTIKKA

Questions are of two sorts: direct and indirect. Whatever the merits of Dr. Egli's theory of direct questions are, it runs a risk of failing to do justice to the connection between these two kinds of questions. For the kind of operator his " ? " is, i. e., an operator alternative to the assertion operator " I- ", cannot in its present form serve to characterize subordinate questions, only direct ones. For in indirect questions, nothing is actually being asked.

Yet the semantical connection between the two is unmistakable. What could be plainer than that there is a close connection in meaning between the following two sentences? (1) (2) It is true that Dr. Egli does not attempt a treatment of subordinate questions like (2). However, the trouble is that there is no obvious way within Dr. Egli's approach to deal with such indirect questions. A reference to Mon- tague semantics is not helpful, for in its present shape it is conspicuously un- able to handle satisfactorily such subordinate questions as the one that oc- curs in (2)2.

Nor is the obvious prima facie expedient of bringing in the operator " ? " also when analysing subordinate questions like (2) likely to be successful. For then the clear connection between subordinate questions like (2) and certain that-constructions with the same main verb is easily lost. A case in point would be the relation of (2) to such sentences as (3) and (4). (3) I know of some one person that he came to the meeting.

1 Urs Egli, " Semantische Reprasentation der Frage ", Dialectica, Vol. 27 (1973), nos. 3-4, ed. H. Lauener, pp. 363-370.

2 Cf. my " On the Proper Treatment of Quantifiers in Montague Semantics ", in Soren Stenlund (ed.), Logical Theory and Semantic Analysis, D. Reidel, Dordrecht and

Who came to the meeting? I know who came to the meeting.

Boston, 1974, pp. 45-60.

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Jaakko Hintikka 102

(4)

Indeed, it may be argued that (3) or (4) says precisely the sane as (2).

In pointing out these difficulties in Dr. Egli’s approach, I am of course not a disinterested observer, for I have myself advocated in print a compe- ting approach to the semantics of questions 3. The point of raising the prob- lems I have briefly mentioned is not criticize Dr. Egli, however, but merely to take a wider look at his problems so as to realize that the kind of theory Dr. Egli offers just cannot be realistically evaluated v is -h is existing alter- native theories without considering many problems Dr. Egli does not men- tion or even hint at.

Another such testing-ground Dr. Egli does not fully utilize is the ques- tion-answer relationship. Dr. Egli lumps together as answers to who-ques- tions entirely different kinds of verbal responses to questions, among them the following kinds of replies to an inquiry like (1). (5) All professors. (6) At least one professor. (7) Hans and Peter.

It remains to be seen whether such an as it were syntactically motivated notion of answerhood has much interest. One difficulty is to guard oneself against empty replies nobody would accept as answers, e. g., (8) Whoever came.

This has prompted J. J. Katz to include in his criterion of answerhood a clause about the semantic markers which the NP that is supposed to act as an answer must contain. Unfortunately this extra clause does not save his theory, as I have shown 5. Furthermore, among the answers Dr. Egli considers, there are conspicuous differences. For instance, ( 5 ) - (6) are in

I know of certain persons that they are all the people who came to the meeting.

3 See “ Questions about Questions ”, in Milton K. Munitz and Peter K. Unger, (eds.) Semantics and Philosophy, NYU Press, N. Y. 1974, pp. 103-158; “ Answers to Questions ”, in my The Intentions of Intentionality and Other New Models for Mod- dries , D. Reidel, Dordrecht and Boston, 1975. A monograph The Semantics of Ques- tions and the Questions of Semantics will probably be ready in 1976.

4 J . J. Katz, “ The Logic of Questions ”, in B. van Rootselaar and J. F. Staal (eds.), Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science 111, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1968, pp. 463-493. Reprinted with changes as Chapter 5 of J. J. Katz, Semantic Theory, Har- per & Row, N. Y., 1972.

5 “ Questions about Questions ” (note 3 above), especially sections 25-26.

The Question of ? : A Comment on Urs Egli 103

some sense inconclusive. One can very well respond to them by such further questions as

(10) But who is he? whereas (7) cannot likewise be challenged on grounds of incompleteness. Again, before the theories of Egli, Montague, and Hamblin are developed further so as even to attempt to tackle such problems, they just are not in the same ballpark yet with an analysis of questions which can account for them.

(9) But who are these professors?

6 Richmond Thomason (ed.), Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard

7 C . L. Hamblin, " Questions in Montague English ", Foundations of Language, Montague, Yale U. P., New Haven, 1974.

VOI. 10 (1973), pp. 41-53.

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