Polar Nouns and Polar Concealed Questions

This chapter introduces a hitherto unnoticed type of concealed questions, namely, polar concealed question readings. Previous research on Concealed Questions has concentrated on NPs corresponding to identity questions (e.g., Kim knows the price ≈ ‘Kim knows what the price is’). This chapter focuses on NPs whose reading is similar to that of a polar interrogative in certain interrogative contexts, e.g., Their survival is uncertain ≈ ‘Whether or not they have survived is uncertain’. The contexts that allow this reading and the properties of the nouns that allow it are explored. It is shown that the polar reading is licensed in contexts that lack factive presupposition or allow presupposition to be cancelled. It is then shown that central polar nouns, those which can easily get polar readings in interrogative contexts, denote simple eventualities and are either stative or correlated with a salient state in their default uses (in non-interrogative contexts). Contextual factors are examined, in particular the possible coercion of polar readings by contextual elements. Possible ambiguities are also discussed, in particular with Degree Concealed Questions, which motivates the hypothesis that the variety of concealed question readings should be reexamined.