The Pragmatic Utility of Asking the Right Question in a Recommendation Scenario

Abstract

The formal study of argumentation-based dialogue lacks a comprehensive reference framework, particularly from a linguistic perspective. This work addresses part of this gap by analysing whether the relationship between the semantic-syntactic structure of questions and their pragmatic features could increase the utility of the corresponding answers. A preliminary experiment was carried out to identify which forms of information-seeking request best prompt useful human responses, thereby efficiently solving decision problems. Four question types were tested alongside alternative formulations to examine the influence of pragmatic features on answer quality and cognitive effort. Results suggest that pragmatic features can affect the informativeness of answers, with polar questions tending to elicit informative or over-informative responses, while content questions displayed greater variability. Additionally, questions containing polarity items appeared to increase cognitive load, as reflected in response patterns. While these findings are necessarily tentative due to the exploratory nature of the study, they offer promising indications for the design of linguistically grounded, argumentation-based dialogue systems and point to several avenues for further research, including broader experimental designs and an expanded set of pragmatic variables.