ECHO QUESTIONS - A PRAGMATIC ACCOUNT

According to Banfield (1982), echo questions are distinguished from no n-echo questions by the fact that they question the style of an uttera nce and not the what they refer to. This paper argues against this vie w, showing, first that echo questions can be used to question not only the words uttered by a speaker, and second, that what distinguishes e cho questions from non-echo questions is simply the fact that they are echoic. The key to this analysis is Sperber and Wilson's (1986) notio n of representation by resemblance, a notion which is general enough t o encompass both the echo questions that Banfield has in mind and thos e cases in which the echoer is questioning the thought communicated by the preceding utterance. Indeed, this analysis, in contrast with Banf ield's, allows questions which reformulate the preceding utterance to be regarded as a species of echo question.