This paper revisits two fundamental issues in question semantics—what does a question mean, and how is this meaning compositionally derived? Drawing on observations with the distribution of wh -words in questions and free relatives as well as quantificational variability effects in question-embeddings, I argue that the nominal meanings of short answers must be derivable from question denotations, which therefore calls for a categorial approach to defining questions, including embedded questions. I provide a novel hybrid categorial approach to compose questions. This approach overcomes the problems with traditional categorial approaches in defining bare wh -indefinites, composing multi- wh questions, and accounting for coordinations of questions.

中文翻译：

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问题组合的混合分类方法

本文重新讨论了问题语义中的两个基本问题——问题的含义是什么，以及这个含义是如何从构成上推导出来的？根据对问题和自由亲属中 wh 词分布的观察以及问题嵌入中的量化可变性效应，我认为简答题的名义意义必须可从问题外延中推导出来，因此需要一种分类方法定义问题，包括嵌入式问题。我提供了一种新颖的混合分类方法来编写问题。这种方法克服了传统分类方法在定义裸 wh 不定词、组合多 wh 问题和说明问题协调方面的问题。