13: Nuclear Rises in Update Semantics
In: Questions in Dynamic SemanticsSearch for other papers by Marie Šafářová in
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Abstract
This chapter discusses existing semantic analyses of the rise shortly and subsequently offers an alternative which can reconcile the somewhat conflicting empirical observations regarding the use of rise in questions. Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg suggest that particular tunes specify the relationship between the propositional content of the utterance over which they are employed and the mutual beliefs of the conversation participants. In a rational conversation, participants cooperate on finding the strongest possible answers to questions that have been raised. The final rise is not exactly synonymous with a particular lexical adverb and all the translations of the final rise with a lexical expression should be understood very loosely. It is generally assumed that there is a syntactic and presumably also semantic difference between it might be that, maybe, possibly or perhaps. At least 'maybe', however, seems to function differently from the rise.