The limits of questioning: negative interrogatives and hostile question content

This paper considers negative interrogatives-questions beginning with such frames as 'Isn't it', 'Don't you', 'Shouldn't you' etc. - as limiting cases of 'questioning'. Using data from news interviews, where questioning is mandatory and the boundary between questions and assertions can be highly sensitive and contested, it suggests that this form of interrogative is recurrently produced as, and treated as, a vehicle for assertions. Further while negative interrogatives are contested as 'assertions', statements accompanied by negative tags are not. This suggests that Bolinger's (Bolinger, Dwight, 1957. Interrogative Structures of American English. University of Alabama Press, Alabama.) claim that the two formats are equivalent is incorrect. Some suggestions are offered as to why the two formats should be differentially treated in terms of their assertiveness. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.