Interrogative sentences

The communicative function of interrogative sentences consists in asking for information.

All varieties of questions may be of the following types:

General questions

A general question opens with a verb operator (an auxiliary, modal or link verb) followed by the subject. It is characterized by the rising tone:

Does it hurt much?

Can you speak French?

Ready?― elliptical question.

Haven’t you posted the letter yet?

Note the meaning of Yes and No in answers to negative questions:

Isn't he a bore? ― Yes (He is a bore).

Isn’t he a bore? ― No (He isn’t a bore).

Yes and No are used according to the facts and not according to the form of the question. Compare with Russian: Вы не были в Париж?― Нет, была. / ― Да, не была.

Tag questions

A tag question is a short yes-no question added to a statement. This is usually done when you expect the person you are addressing to agree with you or confirm your statement. Tags are most often used in spoken English.

It is quite warm, isn’t it? ― positive statement+negative tag

You didn’t know I was an ― negative statement+positive tag

artist, did you?

That hardly counts, does it? ― the tag is positive because the statement contains a semi-negative word

I’m controlling it, aren’t I? ― note the negative tag with “I”.

Nobody had bothered to ― note the use of the plural pronoun in the tag

do this, had they?

Come into the kitchen, ― to make your order sound less forceful

will you?

See that she gets safely back,

won’t you?

Don’t tell Howard, will you? ― after a negative imperative only

a positive tag is used

Let’s forget it, shall we?

Note the answers to the following tag questions:

You don’t know French, do you? ― No, I don’t (If you don’t know it).

You don’t know French, do you? ― Yes, I do (If you know it).

Alternative questions

An alternative question or an “either-or” question, implies a choice between two or more alternative answers. It opens with an operator and the suggestion of choice is expressed by the conjunction or. The yes-no answer is impossible. Words, word groups and clauses can all be linked in this way:

Do you like your coffee white or black? ― Black, please.

Will you have your whisky, or do you want dinner straight away? ― Whisky.

Suggestive questions

Suggestive, or declarative, questions form a peculiar kind of “yes-no” questions. They keep the word order of statements but serve as questions owing to the rising tone:

You’re working late tonight?

Suggestive questions are used:

1) when we want to confirm something,

2) when we want to express surprise,

3) as leading questions to get exact information,

4) in echo-questions repeating the structure of the statement that came before:

He said you were a very good teacher. ― He said that?

The use of indefinite pronouns and adverbs has a positive orientation (unless negation is meant).

You have something to tell me? ― Just a few words.

Pronominal questions

Pronominal questions or special, or wh- questions, open with an interrogative pronoun or a pronominal adverb the function of which is to get more detailed or exact information about a particular person, thing, place, reason, method, or amount. Question words may have various syntactic functions. The word order is characterized by inversion except for the cases when a wh- word is the subject of the question. The tone is usually falling:

And then what happened?

What am I going to do without you?

Who discovered this?

Who did she marry?

Who did she dance with?

Which is the best restaurant? (which is used when there is a limited choice)

Where do you think he is now? (the parenthesis “do you think” does not call for the inverted word order).

Pay attention to the fact that question words in English and in Russian may not coincide:

What is this plant called? ― Как называется это растение?

What does a unicorn look like? ― Как выглядит единорог?

What do you think? ― Как вы думаете?

Rhetorical questions

Both general and pronominal questions may serve as rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question contains a statement disguised as a question. Usually it is a positive question hiding a negative statement. No answer is expected:

Can anyone say what truth is?

Rhetorical questions are used in emotionally coloured monological speech, especially in oratory, poetry and the writer’s digressions.

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