funded by the German Science Foundation DFG 2012-2014.

Description of the network

The overall goal of the network is to work towards to a better understanding of the nature of questions as linguistic and semantic objects and the role of questions in the interpretation of natural language. The network focuses on three distinct aspects of this complex interaction. First, we discuss the role of implicit and explicit questions in the realization and interpretation of information structure. Second, we discuss the role of implicit questions in discourse structuring, in the interpretation of discourse particles, in the projection properties of presuppositions and in related phenomena. Finally, keeping in mind the insights from the first two investigations, we turn to the more general question of how questions and questions answer paradigms should be formally modeled, and how to distinguish between different types of questions: implicit, explicit, embedded, concealed etc. The general aim of the network is to achieve a certain consensus on these questions in a joint effort.

• The results of the discussions shall be documented in a set of joint publications. In particular, there will be a larger theoretical paper providing an overview of the theoretical problems arising with questions in discourse and the possible solutions to these problems. In addition, there will be a number of papers on particular empirical phenomena in which questions in discourse are used as a tool for semantic/pragmatic analysis. In order to ensure maximal quality of these papers we intend to publish them in a special issue of a major international journal.
• The meetings shall not only concentrate on the general theoretical questions raised above but also help to identify areas in need of further theoretical and/or empirical inquiry, such as the interpretation of discourse particles, association with focus, questions and discourse relations etc. At least some of these fields, which remain to be identified in more detail and to be discussed at the meetings, will be tackled in future joint projects resulting in grant proposals both with the German Science Foundation (DFG) and in international research programs. It is expected that especially the junior researchers will highly benefit from these future collaborations.

The members of the network are:

• David Beaver, University of Texas at Austin.
• Daniel Büring, Universität Wien
• Mira Grubic, Universität Potsdam
• Katharina Hartmann, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
• Klaus von Heusinger, Universität Stuttgart
• Annika Herrmann, Universität Göttingen
• Edgar Onea, Universität Göttingen
• Arndt Riester, Universität Stuttgart
• Craige Roberts, Ohio State University Columbus
• Floris Roelofsen, Unversity of Amsterdam
• Radek Šimík, Universität Potsdam
• Magdalena Schwager, Universität Göttingen
• Henk Zeevat, Unversity of Amsterdam
• Ede Zimmermann, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Malte Zimmermann, Universität Potsdam

For more information download two section from our DFG application. The state of the art description and the description of the aims and program.