Q-morpheme hypothesis, performative analysis and an alternative
pp. 151-163
in: Henry Hi (ed), Questions, Berlin, Springer, 1978Abstract
Linguists have proposed two types of analyses in dealing with questions. One is in terms of Q-morpheme, the other is performative analysis. The Q-morpheme has its roots in the use of operators in logic. Performative analysis, which stems from another trend in the philosophy of ordinary language, has borrowed its basic concept of the performative verb from Austin (Austin 1962). According to performative analysis direct questions are dominated by a sentence containing an abstract verb, whose features resemble the verb ask.