Yes/No Questions with Negation: Towards Integrating Semantics and Pragmatics

Yes/no questions with negation show that pragmatic considerations enter in the analysis of linguistic form: the negation marker in sentences like “Don't you appreciate computational linguistics?” cannot be interpreted in terms of a logical operator. Rather, it indicates the speaker's bias towards a positive or negative answer to the positive form of the question. German has a special particle “doch” instead of the usual agreeing “ja” for an unexpected positive answer.