Interrogative sentences

Interrogative sentences contain questions. Their communicative function consists in asking for information. They distinguish the following types of questions: general (“Yes-no”), tag (disjunctive), alternative, suggestive (declarative) and special (pronominal) questions.

General questions

In general questions the speaker is interested to know whether some event or phenomenon asked about exists or does not exist; accordingly the answer may be positive or negative, thus containing or implying “yes” or “no”.

A general question opens with an auxiliary, modal, or link verb followed by the subject. Such questions are characterized by the rising tone.

Does your sister go figure-skating? Is that girl a friend of yours?

“Yes-no” questions may be incomplete and reduced to two words only:

Can you? Does he?

A negative "yes-no" question usually adds some emotional colouring of surprise or disappointment.

Haven’t you posted the letter yet? (Why?)

Tag questions

A tag (disjunctive) question is a short “yes-no” question added to a statement. It consists only of an operator prompted by the predicate verb of the statement and a pronoun prompted by the subject. Generally the tag has a rising tone.

You know French, don’t you? - Yes, a bit.

A tag question is added to a statement for confirmation and therefore is sometimes called a confirmative question. It corresponds to such Russian tag questions as He так ли? Не правда ли? Ведь так? The speaker expects the listener to share his view of some situation rather than to give him some new information. The most usual patterns of sentences with tag questions are as follows.

Positive statement - negative tag - positive answer

You knew that before, didn’t you? - Yes, I did.

Negative statement - positive tag - negative answer

You didn’t know that before, did you? - No, I didn’t.

The answer, however, may be unexpected, as in: You didn’t know that before, did you ? - But I did.

The falling tone of the tag is also possible. It makes the whole sentence sound like a statement. The speaker actually knows the answer and can do without it.

There is one more sentence pattern with a tag question which is less frequently used.

Positive statement - positive tag

You knew about it before, did you?

Negative statement - negative tag

You didn’t know about it before, didn’t you?

This sentence pattern is used when the speaker comes to a conclusion concerning some event. Such sentences may begin with the conjunction so.

So you knew about it before, did you?

A sentence pattern with a tag question may serve as a response to the previous remark. Thus it forms a comment having some emotional attitude, such as surprise, anger, sarcasm.

He brought these flowers, too. - He did, did he? - Yes.

Alternative questions

An alternative question implies a choice between two or more alternative answers. Like a “yes-no” question, it opens with an operator, but the suggestion of choice expressed by the disjunctive conjunction or makes the “yes-no” answer impossible. The conjunction or links either two homogeneous parts of the sentence or two coordinate clauses. The part of the question before the conjunction is characterized by a rising tone, the part after the conjunction has a falling tone.

Will you go to the opera or to the concert to-night?

An alternative question may sometimes resemble a special question beginning with a question word:

Which do you prefer, tea or coffee?

Where shall we go, to the cinema or to the football match?

Actually such structures fall into two parts, the first forms a special question, the second a condensed alternative question.

Sometimes the alternative contains only a negation:

Will they ever stop arguing or not?

Suggestive questions

Suggestive questions, also called 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 in speaking and a question mark in writing, as in:

You really want to go now, to-night?

By their communicative function suggestive questions resemble sentences with tag questions; they are asked for the sake of confirmation. The speaker is all but sure what the answer will be (positive or negative), and by asking the question expects confirmation on the part of the ad­dressee.

You are familiar with the town? - I spent winter here many years ago.

You still don’t believe me, Aunt Nora? - No,I don't.

The answer is sometimes unexpected.

A child like you talking of “we women”! What next? You’re not in earnest?

- Yes, I am.

Unlike ordinary “yes-no” questions, suggestive questions may con­tain independent elements, such as interjections, modal words or phrases, the conjunction so, parenthetical clauses, etc., as in:

You are joking, eh? Surely you are not offended? So you knew about, it before?

Suggestive questions are frequently used as question responses with various kinds of emotional colouring, most often that of surprise or incredulity.

He said you were a very good ski-teacher. - He said that?

Special questions

Special (pronominal) questions open with an interrogative pronoun or a pronominal adverb, the function of which is to get more detailed and exact information about some event or phenomenon known to the speaker and listener.

The interrogative pronouns and adverbs which function as question words are as follows: what, which, who, whom, whose, where, when, why, how and the archaic whence (= where from), whither (= where, where to), wherefore (= what for, why).

Adverbial phrases such as how long, how often may also function as question words. Question words may have various syntactical functions in the sentence, depending upon the information the speaker wants to obtain:

1. Who came first? (subject) - I did.

2. What makes you think so? (subject) - Your behaviour.

3. Whose team has won the match? (attribute) - Ours.

4. Which story did you like best? (attribute) - The last.

5. Who is that man? (predicative) - He is my brother.

6. What are you doing there? (object) - Nothing.

7. When are you going to come back? (adverbial of time) - Tomorrow.

8. How can I get to your place? (adverbial of manner) - By bus.

As can be seen from the above examples, word order in a special question is characterized by inversion of the operator and the subject. Inversion does not take place when the question word is the subject or an attribute to the subject (see examples 1, 2, 3).

A question word may be preceded by a preposition.

On what resolution do you insist?

In colloquial English it is preferable to shift the preposition to the end of the question.

What are you laughing at? What did you argue about?

In colloquial English the pronoun who is used as a question word functioning either as subject or object.

Who has done it? Who do you see there?

The tone of pronominal questions is usually a falling one.

Imperative sentences

Imperative sentences express commands which convey the desire of the speaker to make someone, generally the listener, perform an action. Besides commands proper, imperative sentences may express prohibition, a request, an invitation, a warning, persuasion, etc., depending on the situation, context, wording, or intonation.

Stand up! Sit down. Open your textbooks. Be quick!

Formally commands are marked by the predicate verb in the imperative mood (positive or negative), the reference to the second person, lack of subject, and the use of the auxiliary do in negative or emphatic sentences with the verb to be.

Commands are generally characterized by the falling tone, although the rising tone may be used to make a command less abrupt. In writing commands are marked by a full stop or an exclamation mark.

A negative command usually expresses prohibition, warning or persuasion.

Don’t cross the street before the light turns to green.

Commands can be softened and made into requests with the help of the word please, the rising tone, a tag question or a “yes-no” question beginning with will or would.

Speak louder, please. Repeat the last word, will you? Would you do me a favour?

The falling tone and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence opening with will express irritation and impatience, as in:

Will you stop arguing! Will you be quiet!

In the case of first person plural and third person singular and plural subjects, the imperative let is followed by a personal pronoun in the objective case.

Lethim try again. Letthem come in. Letus have some tea.

A first-person command often implies invitation or suggestion and may be followed by the tag shall we.

Let’s do it together,shall we?

A third-person command may begin with a nounor a pronoun denoting the person addressed.

Somebody switch off the light. Mary and John fetch dictionaries.

Here the corresponding negative is:

Don’t anybody switch off the light!

Exclamatory sentences

The main distinctive feature of this communicative type of sentence is a specific intonation; structurally it is variable.

The most common pattern of an exclamatory sentence opens with one of the pronominal words what and how. What refers to a noun, how to an adjective or an adverb. An exclamatory sentence has a subject-predicate structure; the order of the subject and the predicate verb (or the operator) is not inverted. An exclamation has a falling tone in speaking and an exclamation mark in writing.

What a funny story she told us! How beautiful her voice is! How beautifully she sings!

Exclamatory sentences can be reduced to the word or phrase immediately following the exclamatory signals what or how.

What a situation! What a terrible noise! How kind of you to let me in!