Biased Polar Questions

Abstract

Although the following polar question forms raise the same issue, the positive question Is Jane coming?, the low negation question Is Jane not coming?, and the high negation question Isn't Jane coming? cannot be used interchangeably because they are sensitive to the expectations that the speaker may originally have (original speaker bias) and to contextual evidence that becomes available during the conversational exchange (contextual evidence bias). This article summarizes the aspects of these constructions on which agreement has been reached and identifies central points of empirical and theoretical divergence in the literature; further, it critically reviews current attempts to derive original speaker bias in high negation questions as well as the asymmetry between positive questions and low negation questions with respect to contextual evidence bias.