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Eliciting information

425d

Prototypical questions seek information of some kind from the addressee.

However, many questions do not do this. One type which does not is the

rhetorical question (

Û

149 Imperatives and rhetorical questions

). Another, quite

common, type is when what appears to be a question is functioning as a request or

command, where a response in the form of action is required rather than an

informative reply:

Denise, could you pass me my chocolate?

(Denise reacts by passing it; she does not say ‘Yes, I could’)

Will you stop messing about?

Û

408–423 Speech Acts

Exclamatives may also share characteristics of questions (e.g. interrogative

structure), but do not necessarily demand any informative reply from the listener:

[opening a present]

I’m going to open it cos I don’t know what it is. Costa Rica. Coffee beans are

they? Coffee beans. 

Oh isn’t that nice!