64 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
and argue that if (12) has a fall on California it is a literal question but if it
has a rise on California it is a suggestion.^17 While this may be true, it is clearly
not a generally applicable rule, e.g.
(13) Why don’t you sod off
(14) Why don’t you grow upIt seems highly unlikely, regardless of whether the intonation rises or falls,
that a hearer could interpret the illocutionary force of either (13) and (14)
as a literal question except in highly unusual communicative situations. It
seems that intonation does not disambiguate the illocutionary force of
utterances with or without explicit performatives.
Couper-Kuhlen (1986: 169) states that the role of intonation in disam-
biguating questions from statements ‘has long been undisputed’. Yet she,
herself, admits the speech act category of question is controversial and not
easily defi ned. Interrogative mood utterances have the potential to realize
varying speech acts, e.g.
(15) Can you pass the salt? A request
(16) Have you ever heard of anyone as beautiful as me? A boast
(17) Can you leave that bag in the closet? A command.
(18) What time do you call this then? A reprimand
(19) Why does Jane always disappear when we get busy? A complaintYet she (ibid. 169) is surely correct to state that even though the speech act
category of questions appears dubious, questioning is something people
do with words and so should on intuitive grounds alone qualify as a speech
act. Searle (1969: 66) sets out the conditions which, he claims, govern the
uttering of the speech act of questioning.
(20) The rules of a felicitous question
Proposition Any.
Preparatory conditions S does not know the answer i.e. does
not know if the proposition is true or
does not know the answer needed to
complete the proposition. It is not
obvious to both S and H that H will
provide the information at the time
without being asked.