Affirmative and rejective responses to assertions and polar questions

We plan to investigate affirmative and rejective responses to the speech acts of assertions and polar questions, as exemplified by English yes, no, right, wrong, okay, uh-huh and uh-uh and German ja, nein, doch, genau, stimmt, m-hm and m-m. We will experimentally explore the interpretation of such particles as responses especially to negated and non-negated assertions and questions in different contexts. We hope to contribute not only to our understanding of such responses, but also to the semantics and pragmatics of the relevant features of the antecedent clauses and their contexts.