The complementation pattern of certain question‐embedding predicates, such as know and agree, presents a puzzle for the compositional semantics of clausal complementation, as the predicates seem to be able to combine with two distinct types of semantic objects: propositions and questions. The traditional approach to the semantics of these predicates, where embedded questions are reduced to propositions, faces two problems. First, it cannot account for the observation that know‐wh sentences require the subject not to believe any false answer to the embedded question. Second, it makes a problematic prediction concerning the interpretation of Predicates of Relevance, such as care and matter. We review three alternative approaches to the semantics of question‐embedding predicates, i.e., the proposition‐to‐question reduction, the uniform approach and the ambiguity approach, and argue that only the Proposition‐to‐Question reduction and the uniform approach can deal with the interpretation of the Predicates of Relevance. The paper concludes with a remark on how lexical denotations of question‐embedding predicates are constrained in general.

中文翻译：

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问题嵌入谓词的语义

某些问题嵌入谓词的互补模式（例如，知道并同意），对于子句互补的构成语义构成了困惑，因为谓词似乎能够与两种不同类型的语义对象结合：命题和问题。这些谓词语义的传统方法将嵌入式问题简化为命题，但面临两个问题。首先，它不能解释这样的观察，即知道句子的句子要求主体不要相信对嵌入问题的任何错误答案。其次，它对有关谓词（例如关怀和物质）的解释做出了有问题的预测。我们回顾了问题嵌入谓词语义的三种替代方法，即命题到问题的简化，认为统一命题还原和统一方法只能处理关联谓词的解释。本文最后总结了问题嵌入谓词的词汇表述如何受到约束。