FREE INDIRECT QUESTIONS AND EXCLAMATIONS. A REFERENTIAL VIEW
FREE INDIRECT QUESTIONS AND EXCLAMATIONS. A REFERENTIAL VIEW

Summary/Abstract: Free Indirect Questions and Exclamations. A Referential View. The article proposes an account within a framework of formal semantics of the reference / extension of questions and exclamations in free indirect discourse passages selected from narrative fiction. The issue of what constitutes free indirect discourse is discussed, and a semantic framework is provided for the formal representation of selected examples. The analysis indicates, on the one hand, that free indirect questions are semantically associated with the set of propositions expressed by their possible answers, while their extension is the set of true answers / propositions that actualize values of variables like “what”, “how” in a set of corresponding worlds. On the other hand, the extension of free indirect exclamations is assigned in worlds compatible with what the exclaimer exclaims; thus these exclamations represent the exclaimer’s attitude itself.

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