On the status of “attestation adverbials” in bipolar questions

Abstract

The author addresses the properties of the special category of expressions established by Danielewiczowa (2012) and labeled by her “attestation adverbials”. A possible example of the category: He is definitely crazy. The question which the author tries to answer reads: how do expressions of that category fare in bipolar questions?
His answer is as follows. On the one hand, primarily, such questions are deviant, on a par with questions embracing hypotheticals like probably, cf. * Has A probably murdered B? / * Is he definitely crazy?.
On the other hand, secondarily, such questions are acceptable as metonymical utterances where a demand to receive an objective assertion is combined with a presupposition that someone had claimed not only that ‘such is the case [he is crazy]’, but also (by using the adverbial definitely), that her evaluation was unquestionable, cf. Is he, as Smith said, definitely crazy?.