Are English negative polarity questions biased?

Question

A friend and I had a question about a sentence that we encountered:

Didn't you want to pay for something that was too much?

My friend argues that sentence is fairly neutral clarifying in a neutral tone with the Boolean answer, whereas I think it's confirming their bias about the subject.

To explain, I said (as an example):

Do you want to eat dead animals?

Clarifying if they want that option.

Don't you want to eat dead animals?

Confirming that wouldn't they want to eat dead animals, as if they're double checking.

It's an example, and was not meant to trigger them, I could have used wanting to eat an apple, or something else (that feels less distasteful to others' subjective tastes) but that's what came to my mind at that particular moment.

We are both non-native speakers passionate about expressing ourselves in the least ambiguous way possible.

Could someone please shed some light on this who amongst is right, i.e. is the statement (without any context) is considered a question, or just a confirmation of something speaker already made their mind towards based on past experiences (as a context)?

Answer 1

Your question is marred by not being idiomatic:

Didn't you want to pay for something that you thought was too much?

I suggest "Didn't you want to pay for it because you thought that the price was too high?"

is the statement (without any context) is considered a question, or just a confirmation of something speaker already made their mind up about?

The question is further marred because people who are passionate about English realise that, in English, the importance of context cannot be overstated.

The statement, with context, could be either

1.

A: He wanted £260 for the machine, so I left.

B: "Didn't you want to pay for it because you thought that the price was too high?"

This is a genuine question. B is guessing a reason for A's not buying. B has used context, and personal experience, to draw a tentative explanation - it is not "bias".

2.

A: He wanted £260 for the machine, so I left.

B: "You're an idiot. Even broken, those machines are worth £1,000. Didn't you want to pay for it because you thought that the price was too high?"

This is certainly emotive but it is still a guess at the motives for an action.

The second

B: Do/Don't you want to eat dead animals?

(I will ignore the fact that few people eat live animals.)

is, likewise, a guess. There may or may not be a subjective influence in B's deduction and, hence question, but it is nevertheless a deduction/a guess.

Interrogatives that look for, or guess at, the motive of a third party always have a subjective element in them.

Answer 2

Such a sentence structure is typical American sarcasm, where the sarcasm relies on the idiomatic affirmative by negation.

By itself, it is not an idiomatic affirmation by negation. But, it relies on the familiarity of both parties with the common idiomatic affirmative by negation pattern of speech.

I think the gurunaths of the English language have yet to recognize such speech as a distinct form of construction that needs to be christened, have they?

If I am given the recognition, I would issue a linguistic fatwa that such patterns of speech are due to "sarcastic referencing of idiomatic affirmation by negation".