Questioning to resolve decision problems

Why do we ask questions? Because we want tohave some information. But why this particular kind ofinformation? Because only information of this particularkind is helpful to resolve the decision problemthat the agent faces. In this paper I argue thatquestions are asked because their answers help toresolve the questioner's decision problem, and that thisassumption helps us to interpret interrogativesentences. Interrogative sentences are claimed to have asemantically underspecified meaning and thisunderspecification is resolved by means of the decisionproblem.

[1]  C. E. SHANNON,et al.  A mathematical theory of communication , 1948, MOCO.

[2]  D. Blackwell.  Equivalent Comparisons of Experiments , 1953 .

[3]  Charles F. Hockett,et al.  A mathematical theory of communication , 1948, MOCO.

[4]  L. J. Savage,et al.  The Foundations of Statistics , 1955 .

[5]  R. L. Goodstein,et al.  The Decision Problem , 1957, The Mathematical Gazette.

[6]  H. Raiffa,et al.  Applied Statistical Decision Theory. , 1961 .

[7]  Roger D. Rosenkrantz.  Experimentation as Communication with Nature , 1970 .

[8]  K. Szaniawski.  Questions and Their Pragmatic Value , 1973 .

[9]  Jacob Marschak,et al.  Information, Decision, and the Scientist , 1974 .

[10]  Steven E. Boër,et al.  Knowing Who , 1985 .

[11]  J. Hintikka.  Answers to Questions , 1975 .

[12]  C. L. Hamblin.  QUESTIONS IN MONTAGUE ENGLISH , 1976 .

[13]  L. Karttunen.  Syntax and Semantics of Questions , 1977 .

[14]  J. Perry.  Frege on Demonstratives , 1977 .

[15]  Dietmar Zaefferer,et al.  Questions and Answers in a Context-Dependent Montague Grammar , 1978 .

[16]  Günther Grewendorf.  Answering as decision making: A new way of doing pragmatics , 1981 .

[17]  ROBERT MAY,et al.  Questions, quantifiers and crossing , 1981 .

[18]  Jeroen Groenendijk,et al.  Semantic analysis of wh-complements , 1982 .

[19]  Jeroen Groenendijk,et al.  On the semantics of questions and the pragmatics of answers , 1984 .

[20]  A. Stechow.  COMPARING SEMANTIC THEORIES OF COMPARISON , 1984 .

[21]  Dag Westerståhl,et al.  Determiners and Context Sets , 1985 .

[22]  Julia Hirschberg,et al.  A theory of scalar implicature , 1985 .

[23]  N. Sahlin.  Weight of the Value of Knowledge , 1990 .

[24]  Brian Skyrms,et al.  The Dynamics Of Rational Deliberation , 1990 .

[25]  Rohit Parikh,et al.  Vagueness and utility: The semantics of common nouns , 1994 .

[26]  Hotze Rullmann,et al.  Maximality in the semantics of wh -constructions , 1995 .

[27]  Jonathan Ginzburg,et al.  Resolving questions, I , 1995 .

[28]  R. Rooij,et al.  The context-dependence of questions and answers , 1997 .

[29]  J. D. Gerbrandy.  Questions of identity , 1997 .

[30]  M. de Rijke,et al.  Logic, Language and Computation , 1997 .

[31]  A. Lascarides,et al.  Questions in Dialogue , 1998 .

[32]  Arthur Merin,et al.  Information, relevance, and social decisionmaking: some principles and results of decision-theoretic semantics , 1999 .

[33]  H. Rullmann,et al.  A Flexible Approach to Exhaustivity in Questions , 1999 .

[34]  Maria Aloni,et al.  Quantification under Conceptual Covers , 2001 .

[35]  Prashant Parikh.  The use of language , 2001 .

[36]  Robert van Rooy,et al.  Relevance of communicative acts , 2001 .

[37]  Jonathan Ginzburg,et al.  Interrogative Investigations: The Form, Meaning, and Use of English Interrogatives , 2001 .

[38]  Maria Aloni,et al.  Questions under cover , 2002 .

[39]  Robert van Rooy.  Utility of Mention-Some Questions , 2004 .

[40]  Robert van Rooy.  Utility, Informativity and Protocols , 2004, J. Philos. Log..