American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
83
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ajsshr
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue04 2025
PAGE NO.
83-87
10.37547/ajsshr/Volume05Issue04-17
Interrogative Words in Dialogue and Their Sementic
Composition
Ozoda Mehmonova
English teacher of Specialized School №1, Kuvasay district, Uzbekistan
Received:
14 February 2025;
Accepted:
13 March 2025;
Published:
11 April 2025
Abstract:
This article explores the semantic field of questions within dialogic discourse, a dynamic and significant
area of study in contemporary linguistics. It examines the various types of questions employed in conversation,
highlighting their structural and functional differences. Special attention is given to both linguistic and
extralinguistic factors that influence the pragmatic interpretation of interrogative sentences. The study also
emphasizes the importance of the situational basis in question-answer exchanges, illustrating how context and
speech situation shape communicative intent. Examples are provided to support the analysis and to demonstrate
how these factors operate in real-life dialogue.
Keywords:
Dialogic discourse, interrogative sentences, pragmatics, semantic field, question types, speech
situation, context, situational basis, conversation analysis, linguistic factors.
Introduction:
In the context of dialogue, the semantics
of a question reveal its deep cognitive and
communicative significance. A question is not merely a
syntactic construction or a request for information
—
it
is a specific form of thought that arises when existing
or acknowledged information is perceived as
incomplete. This incompleteness introduces a sense of
uncertainty, which lies at the heart of every
interrogative utterance. The primary communicative
function of a question, therefore, is to reduce or
resolve this uncertainty by prompting a response from
the interlocutor.
From a pragmatic perspective, every question
inherently carries an imperative component
—
an
implicit directive that urges the listener to provide the
missing information. In this way, questions function as
speech acts that reflect the speaker's epistemic stance,
expressing varying degrees of certainty, doubt,
curiosity, or assumption. The epistemic modality
embedded in a question indicates the speaker’s level of
confidence about the subject being questioned and
often shapes the form and tone of the inquiry.
Furthermore, the formation and interpretation of
questions in dialogue are influenced by a range of
linguistic and extralinguistic factors. Morphological
markers, lexical choices, syntactic patterns, and
prosodic cues all contribute to how a question is
constructed and understood. At the same time,
situational context, shared knowledge, and the roles of
the interlocutors also play a crucial role in shaping the
meaning and function of questions in real-time
communication. Understanding the semantics and
pragmatics of interrogatives in dialogue thus requires a
comprehensive analysis that encompasses not only
their formal characteristics but also the cognitive,
social, and functional dimensions of language use.
METHODS
Questions always play a prominent role during the
conversations, as their content includes a great deal of
components which belong to the participants of a
dialogue.
Below we can analyze it in context:
Who wrote this letter? = I want to know who wrote this
letter.
Tell me who wrote this letter.
According to one of the linguists, Berkash (1968),
questions can be divided into two large groups:
questions requiring negation or affirmation, and
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
predicative. In this case, questions requiring a negative
or affirmative answer are asked in order to move from
a probable idea to a certain one and, of course, serve
to determine the negative or positive connection of the
idea. We can include general interrogative sentences
that can be answered with “yes” or “no”:
1. Will the presentation of your new project be ready
today? -Yes.
2. Are you a doctor?
–
No
3. Is she preparing a salad?-Yes.
4. Are they ready to the competition?-No.
A predicative question is asked in order to understand
the unknown properties and characteristics of an
object and for getting more meaningful transition from
one idea to another. This type of interrogative sentence
includes special interrogative sentences formed using
interrogative words. The logical structure of an
interrogative sentence is the basis for explaining the
semantics of th
e question. For example, “Where did
the largest volcano on Earth erupt?” The interrogative
pronoun “where” in this sentence requires a complete
and accurate answer to the question posed. There are
a number of pronouns which belong to this group:
Who is the first owner of Nobel prize?
What kind of items are required for this trip?
How many apples do you eat in a week?
When do they go to the concert hall?
For understanding different systems of interrogative
sentences, we should also pay special attention to the
analysis of the question in terms of dictum (the
substantive core or basis of the sentence) and style. In
this regard, we should separately consider the system
of Balli (1955), which is a perfect example of classical
logical analysis. According to Balli
's concept, “A
question can belong to a whole dictum or to a part of
it, to a method or to a part of it. But it can never belong
to both a dictum and a method at the same time (Balli,
1955). The construction of an interrogative sentence
expresses motivation, question, and message colors.
For example, “Are you going to meet your father?” The
sentence serves to convey the message "Dad has
arrived, welcome him."
In addition, if we consider their pragmatics, we can
clearly notice the shades of doubt, determination, or
emotional-evaluative coloring:
Do you see how beautifully the snow is falling?
(meaning expressing the speaker's emotion)
At this point, we can say that in the process of dialogic
communication in the form of a question and answer,
the meanings of the message that motivate, direct to
do something, or call for cooperation may prevail in the
conversation process:
Girls, let's get together today and go to the flower
festival? (content that directs to do something).
In their place, such sentences are delivered to the next
member of the dialogue in a fully formed
extralinguistic, lexical-morphological and syntactical
sense. It is also very important to distinguish the
"imperative operator", which is reflected in the
semantic structure of the question in the form of
imperative (command mood) or motivational seme,
from the logical structure of the interrogative sentence.
For example, the sentence "Are you completing the
task?" actually clearly expresses the command in the
content of "Complete the task".
One of the researchers, Voronin (1992), describes this
process as follows: “Any interrogative sentence
contains an element of instruction, a command,
because it implies the reaction of the interlocutor”.
Since this phenomenon is considered a very strong
element of the structure, questions are often perceived
as one of the methods of stimulation, that is, as an
impetus
for
speech
action.
According
to
Rakhmonkulova (1991), at the centre of the semantics
of the question is always the function of requesting
information, along with the meaning of the proposal. In
this situation, the question contains known (proposal)
and unknown aspects, which require a direction in
which to search for an answer. It is also important to
know that the color of uncertainty is present not only
in interrogative sentences, but also in the semantics of
declarative sentences. Below we will consider several
examples: Who cried? = Someone cried.
Will it rain tomorrow? = It seems like it will rain
tomorrow.
In conclusion, we can say that both sides of the above
sentences express the same meaning of uncertainty.
This means that in the process of dialogic speech, we
can get an answer or opinion to ambiguous and
ambiguous situations not only with the help of
interrogative sentences, but also with the help of
indicative sentences that contain uncertainty. To
summarize, the semantic structure of an interrogative
sentence has three main meaning constructions:
imperative (command), ambiguity (questions asked to
clarify doubtful things) and reporting. The wide
functional range used in question-answer discourse is
formed from various combinations of these three
semes. The change in the meaning of an interrogative
sentence is explained by the exchange of semes. For
example, in sentences with a strong interrogative
meaning, the semes of ambiguity and imperative
prevail. The seme of imperativeness brings more
additional colors to the conversation process, such as
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
criticism, reproach, and rejection. In addition, in the
formation of a question-answer dialogue, it creates a
connection between the interrogative sentence and
the response replicas and provides a mandatory
answer. Therefore, we can call the imperative seme a
force that drives the coherence of the dialogical text
and the dynamics of communication. In imperatives,
intrusiveness (influence on the interlocutor in some
way) is manifested in such forms as apologizing for the
question asked:
-Can I ask you something? How do I get to the central
building?
-Do you mind if I ask you to tell me about your new job?
In our opinion, in the process of communication, a
question, which is asked from the point of view of
actively influencing the interlocutor, should occupy an
intermediate position between statements. It should
be noted that the story, motivation and question are
the three main settings for generalizing communicative
goals. When something is asked in the process of
conversation, the speaker's full attention is focused on
the answer or action to be taken. The narrative form
practically does not require a reaction from the
interlocutor, in this case the speaker's position in
relation to the listener becomes passive, and the
expressiveness of the statement is significantly
reduced. Sentences in the sense of doubt have such
basic meanings as requests and proposals, therefore
we can say that such sentences are completely
different from imperative sentences. The semantics of
doubt in interrogative sentences clearly shows that the
speaker avoids expressing his thoughts directly, and
intends to present them among other statements. By
considering the example of the given sentence, we can
fully understand: Do you have an extra pen?
In the example above, despite the fact that the speaker
actually wants to get a pen from his partner, he is
expressing his request in the form of an interrogative
sentence. According to the linguist Pocheptsov (1978),
the semantics of a dialogue in the form of a question-
and-answer form reflects a request about the
addressee’s qualifications and knowledge, that is, the
person asking the question asks a question, indicating
whether the interlocutor has knowledge on the
subject. The examples given below can serve as clear
evidence for the above points:
-Do you know how cold it is outside?
-Do you know where this village is and how long it takes
to get there?
But questions that are asked to test the interviewer's
knowledge (for example, in exams) are considered
dominant questions. Because they are formulated in
accordance with the requirements and goals set:
- Name the smallest bird in the world?
- What is the formula for calculating the sum of positive
and negative numbers?
- What is the process of plants getting food from
sunlight called?
When we talk about the structure of interrogative
sentences, its main components are intonation, word
order, the use of interrogative pronouns, and the
presence of information to be obtained. At the same
time, it is worth knowing that one of the main criteria
is whether the answer has the necessary structural
components. So, the classification of interrogative
sentences is actually based on the question-answer
pair.
In terms of grammatical structure, expression, and
content, we can say that interrogative sentences are
divided into two large groups. These groups are general
interrogative sentences and special interrogative
sentences. General interrogative sentences are
questions that require the denial or affirmation of a
given idea or proposition:
-Have all the participants of today's meeting arrived? -
No. Not yet.
According to Zaikin (1985), general interrogative
sentences emphasize that as part of a dialogic unity,
the answer to a general interrogative sentence
contains an implicit or explicit expectation of the
addressee. In this case, we can also divide the
expectation process into three types: negative, positive
and neutral. If the addressee has no idea about the
answer to be received, this is a neutral expectation.
Answers to general interrogative sentences are
expressed in the form of yes/yes, no/no, or their
synonyms. General interrogative sentences, which
have caused discussions among many dialogue
researchers, contain hidden special questions in their
essence. In this case, the answer to the question should
contain not only the meaning of confirmation or
possibility, but also an additional explanation:
-Do you have four children?
A positive answer (yes) to this type of question can be
considered complete, but a negative answer in itself
requires an explanation and explanation from the
respondent. That is, if the answer to the question “Do
you have four chil
dren?” is “no”, the respondent is
obliged to provide information about how many
children he actually has. In this case, a special
interrogative sentence is hidden under the general
interrogative sentence, and it takes the form of “How
many children do you
have?”
This situation also exists in the alternative form of
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
special questions: to questions of the form "So, are you
coming on Monday or Wednesday? , in addition to the
answers "on Monday" and "on Wednesday", it is
possible to give answers such as "on Tuesday", "after
Saturday lunch", "on Thursday morning". That is, the
question "When will you come?" is based on this
statement, and the answer itself can be of a similar
variety.
According to our conclusions, questions, depending on
how they are presented in the speaker's mind, each of
them has a separate "special" form, according to its
semantics. Its task is determined by filling a specific gap
in the mind and knowledge of the questioner, finding
information unknown to him. Nevertheless, the
questioner can partially "rework" it when forming it,
that is, narrowing the search space using knowledge
and assumptions. According to the views of one of the
linguists Berdnik (1993), we can also arrange the types
of questions on a scale, at one end of which there are
special questions that allow the respondent to freely
choose an answer, and at the other end there are
general questions that narrow the range of choices. In
order for the questioner to receive the information he
needs, he must "rework" the question, choosing one of
these two structures. Thus, answer forms such as "yes"
or "no" are only used for "interrogative-affirmative"
and "interrogative-predictive" questions.
In the process of asking a question, the speaker can
move from ambiguity to clarity using various means. In
this case, the question restores the original purpose of
the question with the help of another contextual set
and a separate program:
-Are you a pilot? (What is your profession, who are
you?)
- Will you stay in this city for a long time? (When will
you leave?)
- The girl who is coming, Sarah? (Who?)
These types of questions are also clearly visible in the
question-answer category of English dialogic discourse:
-Is she ten years old? (How old is she?)
-Do you live in this city? (Where do you live?)
- Would you like a cup of coffee? (What do you want to
drink?)
In dialogic speech, the role of grammatical means,
along with lexical units, in the formation of relations
between semantics and pragmatics is incomparable.
Grammatical categories such as tense, person, and
mood play an important role in the emergence of
pragmatic meaning in the speech process. Pragmatics
and semantics serve equally to achieve the
communicative goal, and each has its own role in the
formation of communicative meaning.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, questions serve not only as tools for
eliciting information but also as means of conveying a
range of modal meanings, such as irony, suggestion,
and command. These pragmatic functions of
interrogative sentences are shaped through diverse
morphological, semantic, and lexical structures,
reflecting the complexity and richness of their use in
spoken discourse.
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