On Negative Yes/No Questions

Preposed negation yes/no (yn)-questions like Doesn't Johndrink? necessarily carry the implicature that the speaker thinks Johndrinks, whereas non-preposed negation yn-questions like DoesJohn not drink? do not necessarily trigger this implicature. Furthermore,preposed negation yn-questions have a reading “double-checking” pand a reading “double-checking” ≠ p, as in Isn't Jane comingtoo? and in Isn't Jane coming either? respectively. We present otheryn-questions that raise parallel implicatures and argue that, in allthe cases, the presence of an epistemic conversational operator VERUMderives the existence and content of the implicature as well as thep/≠ p-ambiguity.

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