Publications
Publication details [#358]
Lie, Svein. 1978. Cleft WH-questions in Norwegian and their presuppositions. Papers from the Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics 4 : 393–399.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Annotation
Cleft and non-cleft questions are normally taken to have identical presuppositions. In Norwegian, however, whereas a cleft question presupposes the existence of some referent(s) for the WH-word (and asks for an exhaustive listing), a non-cleft question only 'supposes' such existence or non-existence (and requests no exhaustive listing).