Interpreting questions with epistemic biases and tracking questioner beliefs in online processing
Vinicius Macuch-Silva, E Jamieson
February 2025 

The present study investigates the processing of negated polar questions in English and German. Using a self-paced reading paradigm, it tests the hypothesis that the morphosyntactic form of such questions signals epistemic biases which affect incremental interpretation. However, we find very limited evidence in support of the hypothesis, with results in both English and German suggestive that interpreting beliefs and biases from questions in real time requires strong contextual and communicative pressures from which comprehenders can infer pragmatic meaning. We discuss our results in light of related psycholinguistic work on the processing of information structural cues as well as theoretical work on the interpretation of questions with biases.

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Reference:	lingbuzz/008832 (please use that when you cite this article)
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keywords:	negated polar questions, biased questions, epistemic biases, question processing, incremental interpretation, self-paced reading
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