Oxford Dictionary defines a "rhetorical question" as one "asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information".
Is there not a term for a 'normal' question, one asked to elicit information?
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1glottopedia.org/index.php/Question– Alex B.Nov 8, 2020 at 3:38
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an interrogative sentence? (this has the explicit meaning of "interrogating" for an answer)– madprogramerNov 8, 2020 at 8:35
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1"Non-rhetorical"?– Draconis ♦Nov 9, 2020 at 3:46
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1 Answer
The term information-seeking question is often used by linguists in precisely this sense, contrasting them with rhetorical questions - for instance, in this paper by linguists at the University of Konstanz.
(Full disclosure: these are colleagues of mine in a large research group on questions.)
