Rhetorical questions or rhetorical uses of questions? Džemal Špago

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ISSN 2303-4858 
4.2 (2016): 102-115 
Džemal Špago: Rhetorical questions or rhetorical uses of questions?
 
 
possible to construe a context in which such questions are used as answer-
eliciting
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, in most cases they will be interpreted as rhetorical. 
RQs that include semantic incompatibility are sometimes formed in such a way 
that the addresser asks about the benefit of something that is apparently useless, as 
shown in the following examples: 
(31) 
MAX: 
(...) 
Listen,
 what's the use of beating around the bush?
That woman 
was the backbone to this family.
(Pinter, 
The Homecoming
, 46)
(32) GELLBURG: 
Say, you're not blaming this on me, are you? 
HYMAN: 
What's the good of blame?
(...)
(Miller, 
Broken Glass
, 505) 
(33) CHICKEN: 
Floods make the land richer.
MYRTLE: