Sentence Types

These are also referred to as interrogative sentences or interrogatives (Latin interrogativus: "of a question").

There are four main types of question:

1. Yes/no questions

   These sentences expect "yes" or "no" for an answer.

   Is your brother still at school? Has anyone brought some cushions? Does it ever snow in Christchurch? Do you like living in Waipu? Did someone lose this towel? Would you like some tea?

    

   Historically, questions could be formed with or without "do": Dost thou say this? or Sayest thou this? In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 1, scene ii, when Hamlet is first told about the appearance of the ghost, he asks the following questions: Hold you the watch tonight? Then saw you not his face? What, look'd he frowningly? Stay'd it long? All these yes/no questions are formed in a way that was quite usual in Shakespeare's time. Today we would usually use the auxiliary "do": Do you hold the watch tonight? Then didn't you see his face? What, did he look frowningly? Did it stay long?

    

2. Wh questions

   These sentences begin with a Wh word: what, which, when, who, why, where, how. They cannot be answered with yes or no.

   Why is your shirt dirty? What do you think about casinos? How did Dunedin get its name?

   Interviewers who use yes/no questions can have difficulty eliciting much response when the person questioned just answers "yes" or "no".

   A: Are you unhappy about the verdict? B: No. A: Did the fact that she was a woman have anything to do with it? B: Yes.

   A questioner who wants a fuller answer must use Wh questions:

   A: What did you think about the verdict? B: Well, I thought ... A: Why do you think they said those things? B: Because ...

    

   In Chinese, yes/no questions are made by adding the particle ma at the end.   Ni xihuan xin xi lan ma? Do you like New Zealand? You like New Zealand?     Wh questions in Chinese have the same word order as the declarative sentence.   Zhe shi shenme? (What is this?) Literally, "This is what?" Ni zhu nar? (Where do you live?) Literally, "You live where?"

    

3. Alternative questions

   These are very similar to yes/no questions, but they offer a choice of answer.

   Did it happen on Monday or Tuesday? Should I ring up, or should I write?

    

   For Mãori and Samoan speakers, alternative sentences can cause trouble. To the question "Do you want an apple or an orange?" the Pakeha teacher expects a specific answer: "An apple please." The Samoan child is more likely to answer simply "Yes", meaning he wants one or the other, and wait for the teacher to elucidate which by a further question. The housing officer who asks "Do you want this house or that?" and gets the answer "Yes" is likely to assume that his client is indifferent to which of the two he is allocated, which may not in fact be the case. Metge and Kinloch: Talking Past Each Other

    

4. Tag questions

   Tag questions are statements with a question tag at the end.

   Tag questions, a peculiarity of English, are usually spoken rather than written.

   It's a lovely day, isn't it? He can swim well, can't he? You wouldn't want to spoil it, would you? It wasn't much of a film, was it?

   The intonation pattern used indicates whether these are in fact genuine questions (requiring a "yes" or "no" answer) or are really statements (requiring only agreement).

   She passed all her exams, didn't she? (With a rising tone on the tag, this can be answered "yes" or "no".) It was a terrible thing to do, wasn't it. (With a falling tone on the tag, this can only be answered "yes".)

   The form of tag questions is quite regular.

   If the statement is positive, the tag will be negative:
   He's an inspiring teacher, isn't he?

   If the statement is negative, the tag will be positive:
   He isn't an inspiring teacher, is he?

    

   For learners of English, whether they are young children or non-English speakers, these tags are grammatically quite complex. This is because the tag is dependent on the preceding statement for its structure. Young children are more likely to use lexical tags, that is, items such as OK, right, and see. These have the same function as grammatical tags, but their form does not change. We'll take the dog with us, won't we? (tag question) We'll take the dog with us, OK? (lexical tag) We'll take the dog with us, eh? (lexical tag)

   The effect of a tag question can also be a softening of a statement.

   It was a good film. It was a good film, wasn't it?

   This way of softening a statement is called hedging. It is a bit like "hedging your bets". Other ways of hedging can be to add words like "rather" or "sort of".

   Tag questions are socially important in English. It has been suggested that women use them more than men and that this use reflects underlying insecurity and a need for confirmation.

   Professor Janet Holmes, of Victoria University, has shown that tag questions have an important function in conversation and that they have more functions than just asking for information. They can be used to bring someone into the conversation and to establish conversational rapport. She suggests that it is for this function that women use tag questions more than men.

   Problems with questions and tag questions

   Some non-standard varieties use "isn't it" for all tag questions. This is a feature of some Welsh dialects.

   You'll be leaving us, isn't it?

   Foreign learners of English often use this invariable isn't it. This is because many foreign languages have an unchanging tag expression for all tag questions. Compare these French sentences with their English translations:

   Vous nous quitterez, n'est-ce pas? You'll be leaving us, won't you? Elle les a quitté, n'est-ce pas? She's left them, hasn't she? Ils me quittent, n'est-ce pas? They're leaving me, aren't they? Je le quittais, n'est-ce pas? I was leaving him, wasn't I?

   It can be tricky for foreign learners of English to respond to tag questions. This is a problem, for example, for native speakers of Polynesian languages. A negative statement followed by a positive tag is not necessarily a straightforward yes/no question. It can be a question that requires the listener to agree.

   It never snows in Auckland, does it? (Surely not!) No (you're right). (indicating agreement) Yes (it does snow sometimes). (indicating disagreement)

   Speakers of some languages tend to use "no" and "yes" the opposite way round.

   Yes (you're right). No (it does snow sometimes).

   Similar misunderstandings can arise with replies to negative questions:

   Didn't you like the film? (I don't think you did.) No, I didn't. (confirming the questioner's belief) Yes, I did. (contradicting the questioner's belief)

   Again, speakers of some languages will say "yes", meaning, "Yes, it's true that I did not like the film," where a native English speaker would say "no".

   Didn't you like the film? English speaker: No (I didn't). Polynesian speaker: Yes (I didn't like it).

   Asking and answering questions for Mãori and Samoan speakers:
   Native speakers of English have a habit of asking negative (and double negative) questions that require a fair bit of unravelling before answering: for instance, "You don't want that, do you?"; "You don't want to lose your coat, do you?"; "You don't have a brother, do you?" To complicate matters, Pakeha ideas of whether to answer such questions with "yes" or "no" are often the exact reverse of what comes naturally to Maoris or Samoans. A Pakeha would say: "No, I don't want that", "No, I don't want to lose my coat", and "Yes, I do have a brother", where Maoris and Samoans would say: "Yes, I don't want that", "Yes, I don't want to lose my coat", and "No, I do have a brother", giving assent or dissent to the whole proposition.

    

   Metge and Kinloch: Talking Past Each Other

    

These are also referred to as exclamative sentences or exclamatives (Latin exclamare : "to call or cry out").

These are used to express strong feelings.

They can begin with "what" or "how":