Echo question¶
An inquisitive English dialogue turn interpreted as asking about an identifiable prior contribution as something just said or conveyed.
Core Idea¶
In the documented English dialogues, an echo question is an inquisitive turn that asks about an identifiable earlier contribution as something just said or conveyed.[ref-6a103a5d634b][ref-a99a70156d58] It can query wording, content or a proposed commitment without requiring one fixed syntax or pitch contour.[ref-6a103a5d634b][ref-a99a70156d58] To recognize it, identify the prior contribution, later question, selected aspect and discourse link that makes the question about that contribution rather than a new fact. Neither an answer nor completed repair is required.
Scope of Application¶
The two worked English dialogues are constructed or adapted examples, with no displayed reply or recorded outcome.
- Sudo's A/B-prime after a polar question — A uses epidemiologist; B-prime's in-situ question asks about a fragment of that just-used expression, rather than a new referent fact.[^ref-6a103a5d634b]
- Biezma's A/B2 after a food assertion — A claims they ate ostrich; B2's fronted wh-question can ask what A just claimed before acceptance, rather than simply which food was eaten.[^ref-a99a70156d58]
Clarity¶
A repeated word or rising pitch alone does not establish an echo question: the useful test is what the later turn asks about.[^ref-a99a70156d58] Sudo's case asks about an expression inside an earlier polar question,[^ref-6a103a5d634b] while Biezma and colleagues' fronted-wh case can ask about what a speaker just claimed.[^ref-a99a70156d58] Similar wording in another context may instead request an unknown fact, so form and interpretation must be kept apart.[^ref-a99a70156d58]
Manages Complexity¶
The four roles separate earlier talk, later inquisitive form, selected target and discourse interpretation. An analyst can examine each role rather than treating a familiar contour or word order as a universal diagnostic. This also keeps Sudo's narrower expression-based analysis[^ref-6a103a5d634b] separate from Biezma and colleagues' discourse-based account; their cases share a recognizable dialogue relation without requiring one agreed semantic theory.[^ref-a99a70156d58]
Abstract Reasoning¶
Use target checking, context substitution and boundary testing. In the ostrich exchange, ask whether B2 is querying A's assertion or seeking the food fact itself; changing the prior discourse can change the available reading.[^ref-a99a70156d58] In the epidemiologist exchange, identify the word fragment B-prime puts at issue.[^ref-6a103a5d634b] Then check the stopping point: the displayed questions do not themselves show a correction, answer or restored alignment.
Knowledge Transfer¶
The earlier-contribution test transfers between Sudo's subword inquiry after a polar question[^ref-6a103a5d634b] and Biezma and colleagues' fronted whole-argument inquiry after an assertion.[^ref-a99a70156d58] Biezma and colleagues also discuss other English forms and prosodic evidence, but these are not additional fully mapped cases here.[^ref-a99a70156d58] It does not transfer Sudo's no-movement restriction or one English pitch pattern to every echo use. Japanese -tte is a comparison cue, not a third full A/B case here.[^ref-6a103a5d634b] Communication Repair is a related larger process that may include an echo inquiry; its correction and resumption roles are not guaranteed by one question. Broader nonlinguistic use remains unestablished.
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Echo question sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (99th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.
Family — Argumentation & Rhetorical Devices (23 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Setup and Payoff — 0.75
- Free Indirect Discourse — 0.74
- Obliteration by Incorporation — 0.73
- Chekhov's Gun — 0.73
- Irrelevant conclusion — 0.73
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-17
References¶
[^ref-6a103a5d634b]: Yasutada Sudo, Metalinguistic Semantics for Echo Questions, 2010 author manuscript. Original author-hosted PDF, pp. 2–3 section 2.1 example (1) A/B-prime and the opening restriction in section 2; p. 4 section 3.1 for the proposed expression-based analysis; pp. 8–9 example (25) and footnote 4 for Japanese -tte. B-prime is explicitly adapted from Blakemore; that earlier original was not separately inspected. The displayed dialogues are analyzed examples, not recorded conversation outcomes. [^ref-a99a70156d58]: María Biezma, Bettina Braun, and Angela James, Prosody is adding what? Echo questions are not a thing, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 31 (2021): 241–261. Full original proceedings PDF, pp. 1–2 examples (1)–(5), especially example (3) A/B2; pp. 3–8 section 2 for North American English production and perception studies; pp. 9–16 section 3 for the discourse-based proposal. The source presents possible contextual readings and does not make one intonation categorically sufficient across cases.