Two Types of Inquisitive Rising Declaratives

Abstract

This paper explores various discourse effects of Inquisitive Rising Declaratives (IRDs). IRDs are biased questions which have positive or negative bias depending on the context. They have two main types, Confirmative and Contradictory. Confirmative IRDs implicate the speakers positive bias toward the prejacent proposition, while Contradictory IRDs implicate the negative bias toward it. In this paper, I propose novel update conventions for two main types in terms of their bias. Confirmative IRDs update the speakers projected commitment set, whereas Contradictory IRDs update the addressees projected commitment set.