@cite{kay-fillmore-1999}: What's X Doing Y? — Empirical Data #
@cite{kay-fillmore-1999}
Theory-neutral judgment data from "Grammatical Constructions and Linguistic Generalizations: The What's X doing Y? Construction" (Language 75(1):1–33).
Phenomena covered #
- Incredulity reading: "What's this fly doing in my soup?" (speaker knows the answer)
- Literal question reading: "What's John doing in the kitchen?" (genuine information-seeking)
- Progressive requirement: WXDY requires progressive doing; bare infinitive is out
- Subject referentiality: referential subjects OK; non-referential degraded
- Complement types: locative PP, participial VP, instrumental PP
- Ambiguity: sentences admitting both readings
- Embedding / CI projection: WXDY meaning under embedding predicates
- FKO1988 comparison: relation to Incredulity Response construction
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Reading type #
The available readings of a WXDY sentence.
- literal : WXDYReading
- incredulity : WXDYReading
- ambiguous : WXDYReading
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Datum structure #
A single WXDY example with judgment and reading information.
- exId : String
Example identifier
- sentence : String
The sentence
- judgment : Core.Empirical.Acceptability
Acceptability judgment
- reading : WXDYReading
Available reading(s)
- phenomenon : String
What phenomenon this illustrates
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- Phenomena.Constructions.Studies.KayFillmore1999.instBEqWXDYDatum.beq x✝¹ x✝ = false
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1. Basic incredulity (§1, pp.1–3) #
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2. Literal question (genuine information-seeking) #
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3. Progressive requirement (§2.2) #
WXDY requires the progressive auxiliary + doing. Without it, only a standard wh-question remains; the incredulity reading disappears.
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4. Subject referentiality (§2.3) #
Referential subjects are fine; non-referential or quantified subjects are degraded on the incredulity reading.
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5. Complement types (§2.4) #
WXDY accepts various complement types: locative PPs, participial VPs, and instrumental PPs.
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6. Ambiguous (both readings available) #
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7. Embedding / CI projection (§3) #
Under embedding, the incredulity component projects like a CI.
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8. FKO1988 comparison #
WXDY relates to the Incredulity Response construction from FKO1988 ("Him be a doctor?"). Both express speaker incredulity via non-standard question form.
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All data #
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Verification theorems #
Both readings are attested in the data.
All judgment types are represented.
All grammatical WXDY examples with incredulity reading have progressive.
Bridge content (merged from CxG_KayFillmore1999Bridge.lean) #
@cite{kay-fillmore-1999}: What's X Doing Y? Construction #
@cite{kay-fillmore-1999} @cite{dayal-2025} @cite{potts-2005}
Formalization of "Grammatical Constructions and Linguistic Generalizations: The What's X doing Y? Construction" (Language 75(1):1–33).
Key insight #
WXDY has interrogative form but expressive function on the incredulity reading. This form–function mismatch is precisely what the existing LeftPeriphery + Expressives + Presupposition infrastructure can derive:
- Interrogative form: +WH feature, wh-fronting, subject-aux inversion
- Expressive function: CI content (unexpectedness), presupposed proposition
The two readings are distinguished by the PerspectiveP layer:
- Literal: speaker is ignorant → PerspP satisfied → genuine question
- Incredulity: speaker knows the answer → PerspP blocked → not a real question
Bridge targets (10 modules) #
| # | Module | Bridge |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Core/Presupposition | WXDY presupposes the embedded proposition |
| 2 | Expressives/Basic | Incredulity is CI content (projects through negation) |
| 3 | Semantics.Questions/Hamblin | Literal = standard which; incredulity = degenerate Q |
| 4 | Semantics.Questions/LeftPeriphery | PerspP disambiguates the two readings |
| 5 | Core/CommonGround | Presupposition requires CG entailment |
| 6 | Verb/Aspect | Progressive requirement (durative ∧ dynamic) |
| 7 | Focus/DomainWidening | Incongruity = normative expectation violation |
| 8 | Semantics.Questions/Polarity | Incredulity = rhetorical question |
| 9 | FKO1988 | WXDY is a formal idiom; sibling to Incredulity Response |
| 10 | Phenomena/KayFillmore1999 | Per-datum verification |
The WXDY construction as a Construction.
Form: [CP What's [TP NP doing [VP/PP...]]]
- Interrogative form: wh-fronting, subject-aux inversion, +WH
- doing is frozen progressive: licenses the construction
- Complement: locative PP, participial VP, or instrumental PP
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WXDY is a formal idiom in FKO1988's typology: encoding (must learn the incredulity convention), grammatical (fills proper grammatical slots), formal (productive open pattern).
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WXDY uses familiar pieces in a familiar arrangement: "what", "doing", etc. are all standard English items in standard syntactic positions. The non-compositional meaning (incredulity) is what must be learned.
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WXDY is a formal idiom: partially open, with pragmatic function.
WXDY inherits from wh-questions: wh-fronting, +WH feature, subject-aux inversion. Overrides: question semantics (on the incredulity reading, it's not a genuine information-seeking question).
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WXDY inherits progressive morphology from the progressive construction: doing carries -ing morphology.
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WXDY and FKO1988's Incredulity Response ("Him be a doctor?") are siblings in the "rhetorical question family" — both express incredulity via non-standard question forms.
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WXDY and the Incredulity Response share the same expressive family.
On the incredulity reading, WXDY presupposes the embedded proposition (the situation that the speaker finds surprising) and has trivial assertion.
"What's this fly doing in my soup?" presupposes: there is a fly in the soup. The at-issue assertion is trivial — the point is to express the CI.
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- ConstructionGrammar.Studies.KayFillmore1999.wxdyPresup embeddedProp = { presup := embeddedProp, assertion := fun (x : W) => true }
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Presupposition projects through negation: "It's not the case that [what's this fly doing in my soup]" still presupposes the fly is there.
WXDY on the incredulity reading has two-dimensional meaning:
- At-issue: the embedded proposition (there's a fly in my soup)
- CI: speaker finds this unexpected/inappropriate
This mirrors @cite{potts-2005}'s analysis of expressives: the expressive content is independent of at-issue truth.
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- ConstructionGrammar.Studies.KayFillmore1999.wxdyTwoDim embeddedProp unexpectedness = Semantics.Lexical.Expressives.TwoDimProp.withCI embeddedProp unexpectedness
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WXDY's CI properties: speaker-oriented, not repeatable (you don't say "What's this fly doing in my soup?" twice for emphasis), immediate (affects context just by being uttered), independent of at-issue truth.
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CI projects through negation: the unexpectedness meaning
survives under negation. Delegates to TwoDimProp.ci_projects_through_neg.
CI is independent of at-issue truth: the unexpectedness holds regardless of whether the embedded proposition is true or false.
Literal reading: standard wh-question "which activity is X engaged in?"
Delegates to Hamblin.which over a domain of activities.
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- ConstructionGrammar.Studies.KayFillmore1999.wxdyLiteralQ activities pred worlds = Semantics.Questions.Hamblin.which activities pred worlds
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Incredulity reading: degenerate question with only the presupposed proposition as an answer. The "question" is not information-seeking; the speaker already knows the answer.
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- ConstructionGrammar.Studies.KayFillmore1999.wxdyIncredulityQ presupposedProp worlds ans = worlds.all fun (w : W) => ans w == presupposedProp w
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The incredulity reading has exactly one answer: the presupposed proposition. The proposition itself is trivially recognized as an answer.
The literal reading is a genuine (non-degenerate) question: it delegates
to standard Hamblin.which, which partitions the answer space by activity.
WXDY has a +WH feature on C (it is syntactically interrogative).
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On the incredulity reading, the speaker KNOWS the answer to the question. This is modeled as a veridical epistemic model at the evaluation world.
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CORE DERIVATION: Veridical speaker model → PerspP presupposition fails → not a real question.
On the incredulity reading, the speaker knows the answer (veridical model). PerspP presupposes possible ignorance: ◇¬know(speaker, Ans(Q)). But veridical knowledge contradicts possible ignorance. Therefore PerspP is blocked, and the utterance is NOT a genuine question.
Delegates to responsive_contradicts_perspP_comp from LeftPeriphery.lean.
On the literal reading, the speaker is genuinely ignorant (ignorant model). PerspP presupposition is satisfied → genuine question.
Delegates to rogative_allows_perspP_comp from LeftPeriphery.lean.
PerspP STATUS DISAMBIGUATES the two readings:
- Incredulity: PerspP fails (veridical model) → not a question → expressive
- Literal: PerspP succeeds (ignorant model) → genuine question
This is the deepest bridge: the form–function mismatch of WXDY is derived from the PerspP mechanism, not stipulated.
The WXDY presupposition must be entailed by the common ground. For "What's this fly doing in my soup?", the CG must already entail that there is a fly in the soup (the speaker sees it).
WXDY's doing selects for activities and accomplishments — predicates
that are durative ∧ dynamic. This connects to the progressive diagnostic:
progressivePrediction =.accept ↔ durative ∧ dynamic.
The progressive requirement in WXDY reflects the same aspectual constraint as the standard progressive: it selects predicates with internal stages.
WXDY's incredulity arises from a normative expectation violation: the situation violates what the speaker considers normal/appropriate. This is the same alternative source as counterexpectational just ("He's just texting during the lecture!").
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WXDY's incongruity and counterexpectational just share the same alternative source: both involve normative expectations being violated.
- WXDY: "What's this fly doing in my soup?" — violates dining norms
- just: "He's just texting during the lecture!" — violates classroom norms
WXDY on the incredulity reading is a rhetorical question:
- The speaker presupposes the positive answer (the situation obtains)
- Belief strength is maximal (speaker SEES the situation)
- Question form is used for pragmatic effect, not information seeking
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- ConstructionGrammar.Studies.KayFillmore1999.wxdyAsRhetoricalQ prop = { prop := prop, presupposedPositive := true, beliefStrength := 1 }
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Rhetorical questions require polar form — they cannot be alternative questions. WXDY on the incredulity reading has this property: you can't say *"What's this fly doing in my soup or not?"
All grammatical WXDY examples use progressive doing.
The data contains all three reading types.