What is a question?

Here are two senses of question:

1. A question is an illocutionary act that has a directive illocutionary point of attempting to get the addressee to supply information.
2. A question is a sentence type that has a form (labeled interrogative) typically used to express an illocutionary act with the directive illocutionary point mentioned above. It may be actually so used (as a direct illocution), or used rhetorically.

Here are some examples of sentences, ordered to illustrate the two senses of question above:

1. An illocutionary act that attempts to obtain information from an addressee

   • Tell me your name.
   • Give me your address.

2. Sentences with inverted word order or interrogative pro-forms

   • What’s your name?
   • Did you sleep well?

• What is an alternative question?
• What is a tag question?
• What is a wh-question?
• What is a yes-no question?

• What is an illocutionary act?

Crystal 1985 254

Hartmann and Stork 1972 190

Larson 1984 234

Mish 1991 966

Context for this page:

• Concept module: question
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): Q
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

© 2004 SIL International