THE CONTRAST BETWEEN INTERROGATIVES AND QUESTIONS

This paper explores the relation between interrogative, a category of grammatical form, and question, a category of meaning. Interrogative c ontrasts with declarative, imperative, etc., in the system of clause t ype (not sentence type); a question defines a set of answers. Two kind s of interrogative are distinguished, closed and open - though in some languages they may be distinct primary classes. Three kinds of questi on are distinguished according to the way the set of answers is define d: polar, alternative and variable questions; another dimension distin guishes information from direction questions. Mismatches between inter rogatives and questions are found in the areas of coordination, parent heticals, echoes and questions signalled only prosodically. Mismatches between interrogative phrases and questioned elements are also invest igated.