QUESTIONS

1. Direct vs. Indirect Questions

Quirk's Classification of Direct Questions

1 Yes/No Questions

2 Wh- Questions

3. Alternative Questions

3. Minor Types of Questions

Tag Questions

Echo Questions

4. Key Terms. Optional Exercises

1. Direct / Indirect Questions

Like Romanian, English makes use of two main types of questions:

direct questions (Did Susan give Tom the parcel?)

indirect questions (He asked if Susan had given Tom the parcel)

We shall leave the problem of indirect questions aside, for a subsequent section. This section will only deal with the opposition between direct and indirect questions, focusing on direct questions mainly.

If we try to analyze the examples above, it appears that direct questions are characterized by:

a) the placing of an auxiliary in front of the subject:

Will Jane meet the president today?

O sa faca Jane cunostinta cu presedintele azi?)

b) the initial positioning of an interrogative or wh - element

Who will Jane meet?

Cu cine o sa se intalneasca Jane?)

What is she talking about?

(Ce spune acolo?)

c) rising 'question' intonation

It can be said that the interrogative force of direct questions is provided by two of the characteristics we mentioned: the fact that the subject changes places with the auxiliary, by means of Subject Auxiliary Inversion, and the specific rising intonation a speaker attaches to the sentence he utters.

Unlike direct questions, indirect ones do not make use of Subject Auxiliary Inversion, and their intonation is not rising (and this is obvious even graphically, since we do not use a question mark with indirect questions). In the case of indirect questions, the interrogative force we were speaking about has been taken over by the main verb that introduces the indirect question. Compare:

Where are you going?

(Unde te duci?)

to

He asked her where she was going.

(A intrebat-o unde se duce)

The fact that the meaning of indirect questions is tightly linked to the main verb that introduces them is reinforced in English by the necessity that the tense within the indirect question should correspond to the tense in the main clause (that is, the rules of the sequence of the tenses need to be observed: in example (5), the Past Tense in the main clause matches the Past Continuous in the subordinate). It would be therefore incorrect to say something like:

He asked her *where she is going.

because, in this case, the sequence of the tenses is violated.

Likewise, it would be wrong to say (in standard English):

He asked her *where was she going.

Since the question is not direct any more, Subject Auxiliary Inversion is not required, and

the sentence would be deemed grammatically wrong.

Activity 1 Analyse the following sentences in terms of the opposition direct/indirect questions; identify the incorrect sentences.

What is going on? / What have you two been up to? / What you two have been up to? / I wonder what have you two been up to? / I wonder what is going on. / I wonder: what is going on? / I wonder: what have you two been up to? / I wonder what you two have been up to. / I don't know whom she fancies. / Who does she fancy? / I don't know who does she fancy. / Who is she? / I don't know who is she. / I don't know who she is. / He asked me who she is. / He asked me who she was. / He asked me: who is she?

Quirk's Classification of Direct Questions

A first possible classification of questions is related to whether these questions are long or short. Short questions tend to lose some of their content, being typical of spoken language. Compare for instance:

What do you want?

(Ce vrei?)

to

What?

(Ce?)

or

(10) Where are you going?

(Unde te duci?)

to

(11) Where to?

(Incotro?)

Activity 2 Transform the following 'long' sentences into 'short' ones:

Is there any trouble? / Do you like my new T.V set? / Do you want me to come along? / What is it that you want? / Why don't you join us? / Would you like to have dinner with me? / Have you heard from her lately? / Are there any bad news? / Is there any mail for me today? / What should I do that for?

Another criterion of classification is, as Quirk shows, the type of answer the respective question requires. In this case, one can speak of three classes of questions: those questions that need a yes/no answer, those that need an elaborate answer and those that need an alternative answer. Let us provide examples and a short presentation of each of the aforementioned types of direct questions.

1. Yes / No Questions

As their name suggests, yes/ no questions are those particular questions that receive a yes/ no answer.

Here are a couple of examples:

(12) Have you read Great Expectations?

(Ai citit Marile Sperante?)

(13) Did you go to the party?

(Te-ai dus la petrecere?)

Activity 3 Form questions and say which of them are Yes/No questions:

(you / pick up the children from school) ?

( you / lend me some money) ?

(which / you like best) ?

(who / talk to last night)?

(you / hear from her these days) ?

(what time / shops close today) ?

(you / keep a secret) ?

(when / the accident happen) ?

(how long / wait for me?)

(what / you do lately) ?

Since questions qualify as non-assertive contexts, one would expect them to make use of Negative Polarity Items:

(14) Did anyone call last night?

(M-a cautat cineva aseara?)

(15) Has the boat left yet?

(A plecat deja vasul?)

Those yes / no questions that prefer to use Affirmative Polarity Items, instead of Negative Polarity ones, are said to be positively - oriented, that is the answers to these questions are supposed to be positive:

(16) Did someone call last night?

(M-a cautat cineva aseara?)

Yes, they did.

(Da).

Has the boat left already?

(A plecat deja vasul?)

Yes, it has.

(Da).

A sub-type of yes/ no questions is represented by the so-called declarative questions, which are so named because they are not characterized by Subject Auxiliary Inversion. The declarative question is a type of question which is identical in form to a statement, except for the final rising question intonation:

You realize what the RISKS are?

Iti dai seama de riscuri?)

He didn't finish the RACE?

(N-a terminat cursa?)

Another sub-type of yes / no questions is supplied by negative questions:

Didn't you know she was my Mum?

(Nu stiai ca e mama mea?)

Can't you be more patient?

(Nu poti sa ai si tu mai multa rabdare?)

Won't you tell me who you went out with?

(Nu-mi spui si mie cu cine te-ai intalnit?)

Activity 4 In the following dialogues, make negative questions using the words given and decide if the expected response would be Yes or No, as in the example:

A: You're still in your pyjamas. Aren't you supposed to be getting ready? (supposed to / get ready)

B: No. I've still got plenty of time.

A: Your mother is shouting for you.   . . . . . ? (hear her)

B: . . , but I want to play basketball a little longer.

A: You've been learning German for years. . . .. . . . . . . . . (speak yet)

B: . . ., but I'm too shy to try in front of strangers.

A: What a lovely hairdo! . . . . . . . . (tell me who does it for you)

B: . .., because you always copy everything I do!

A: Why aren't you coming to the party? . . . . . (feel like getting out)

B: . . . , but I've got to babysit tonight.

A: You look down. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? (enjoy the film)

B: . . . . . . . It was the kind of film that really depresses me.

A: She had her tenants evicted. . . . . . . . . . . . ..? (a mean thing to do)

B: . . . . . . . .. . She's got a reputation for being heartless.

A: That was a rather tactless thing to say. . . . . . . . . (realise she was Ann's sister?)

B: . . . . . . . . .. . You could have mentioned it earlier.

A: There was a terrible car crash. . . . . . . . . . . . . .? (see it on the news)

B: . . . . . . . . . I didn't get home until late last night.

A: It's past your bedtime. . . . . . . . . . . ? (be in bed by now)

B: . . . . . . . . .. . I'm allowed to stay up late at the weekend.

2 Wh - questions

Wh- questions are formed with the aid of one of the following simple interrogative words:

Who/ whom/ whose, what , which

When, where, how, why

The wh-phrase appears in sentence-initial position and Subject Auxiliary Inversion takes place:

a. On what did you base your prediction? (formal)

b. What did you base your prediction on? (informal)

(Pe ce iti bazezi pronosticul?)

Activity 5 Ask questions where the word/phrase in bold is the answer:

Pete works for British Telecom./ Sara owns two cars. / She's tall and fair. / It's nearly seven o'clock./ I have French lessons twice a week. / I went to Hawaii on holiday. / There are six students in my class. / I wasn't at work today because I was ill David's car was stolen. / Shakespeare wrote "King Lear"./ We've lived here for ten years. / My new car cost 10,000dollars. / Kay's gone out shopping. / Shirley got married to Ben. / That's my pen. / She lives in the suburbs./ She dropped her glasses

Activity 6 Write questions in which the bold type words are the answers:

So I was glad for the company of Rosalie. As more old buildings are demolished I must constantly shift about the city, trying to find places where I resided in life, places where a shred of my soul remains to anchor me. There are still overgrown bayou islands and remote Mississippi coves I visit often, but to give up the drunken carnival of New Orleans, to forsake human companionship (witting or otherwise) would be to fully accept my death. Nearly two hundred years, I cannot do that.

Note that there is a group of informal intensificatory wh - words (who ever, what ever, why ever, etc) that convey to the question an emphatic meaning:

What ever did you do that for?

De ce oi fi facut tu asta?)

Why ever didn't he tell me?

(De ce oare nu mi-o fi spus?)

There are, of course, other forms of intensification available:

Who on earth did this?

(Cine o fi facut una ca asta?)

Who the hell does he think he is? (impolite)

(Cine naiba se crede?)

) Why in heaven's name did you say that? (impolite)

(Pentru numele lui Dumnezeu, de ce ai spus asa ceva?)

Activity 7 What is the syntactic function of the wh - phrase in the following examples?

Whoever opened my letter? / Which toys did they buy? / Whose card is this? / How large did he build his boat? / When do you meet Susan? / How long did that last? / Where shall I put these? / Why are you doing this?/ How did you solve the problem? / What job does he have?

There are certain cases where there are two wh - phrases present in the question:

(29)Susan has hidden something somewhere.

What has she hidden where?

(Ce a ascuns si unde l-a pus?)

Where has she hidden what?

(Unde si ce a ascuns?)

3. Alternative questions

Alternative questions are those questions that receive an alternative answer:

(30) A: Would you like to smoke a cigarette or a pipe?

B: A cigarette.

(A: Fumezi o tigara sau o pipa?

B: O tigara.)

Any positive yes/no question can be converted into an alternative one by adding the phrase or not, or a matching negative clause:

Yes / no question: Are you coming?

Vii?

Alternative question: Are you coming or not?

(Vii sau nu?)

Are you coming or aren't you?

(Vii sau nu vii?)

Activity 8 Find the word which should not be in the sentence:

Could you mind come a bit earlier tomorrow?

How far is it the cinema?

3. Minor Types of Questions

There are two minor types of questions we would like to mention in the following subsections: tag questions and echo questions.

3.1. Tag Questions

Tag questions, or disjunctive questions are mostly typical of spoken English. They can be attached to:

an imperative

(33) Open the door, will you?

Deschide usa, da?

(34) Let's go there, shall we?

(Hai sa mergem acolo, da?)

but the most frequent kind of tag questions are the ones attached to:

declarative sentences

(35) She went to Prague, didn't she?

(S-a dus la Praga, nu-i asa?)

We shall deal with the latter type in more detail. Depending on whether they match the polarity of the main sentence or not, tag questions can be:

constant polarity tags

Constant polarity tags have the same polarity as the host sentence (i.e. if the host - or main - sentence is affirmative, the tag is affirmative too; if the host sentence is negative, the tag is negative too). The suggestion is that in this case, the speaker using the tag disagrees with what the main sentence states. In this way, constant polarity tags can be a means of expressing irony, sarcasm; this is why constant polarity tags have also been called "reactive tags", or "comment tags", since they reveal the speaker's reaction to the situation he comments upon:

(36) John: And Sue hasn't graduated yet.

( Si Sue nu si-a dat inca licenta)

Harry: She hasn't graduated yet, hasn't she?

(Aha, deci nu si-a dat licenta, hm?

(37) A: Where's the rest of the money?

(Unde e restul de bani?)

B: I'm afraid it's all spent.

(Din pacate, au fost cheltuiti.)

A: Oh, it's all spent, is it?

(Deci, au fost cheltuiti, hm?)

reversed polarity tags

Reversed polarity tags are those tags that are negative when the host sentence is affirmative and vice versa.

Depending on whether the intonation of the respective tag is rising, or falling, reversed polarity tags can be split in their turn into two categories:

with a rising intonation, the speaker is not sure about what he says and he expects an answer:

(38) They're moving, aren't they?

(Se muta, nu?)

with a falling intonation, the speaker is sure about what he says and doesn't really expect an answer:

(39) He caused the accident, didn't he?

(El e cel care a cauzat accidentul, nu?

Activity 10 Fill in the appropriate question tag:

3. Echo Questions

Quirk discusses two categories of echo questions:

3.1. Recapitulatory echo questions - questions which repeat part or all of the message, as a way of having its content confirmed

In their turn, recapitulatory echo questions can be further split into:

a) general echo questions - characterized by the fact that they have the same order as declarative questions (see 1.) but a rising intonation (instead of a falling one, as is the case with declarative questions):

A: I didn't like that meat.

(Nu mi-a placut friptura aia.)

B: You didn't like it?

( Nu ti-a placut?)

(41) A: My husband speaks Chinese.

(Sotul meu stie chineza.)

B: Chinese?

(Chineza?)

b) special echo questions - the wh- word can be placed in sentence initial position or not. If the wh- phrase is fronted, Subject Auxiliary Inversion takes place, accompanied by rising intonation:

(42) A:I saw Bill yesterday.

(Ieri l-am vazut pe Bill.)

B: You saw WHOM yesterday?

(Pe cine ai vazut ieri?!)

(43) A: Switch that light off.

(Inchide lumina aia.)

B: Switch WHAT off?

(Ce sa inchid?!)

(44) A:We went to Amsterdam.

(Ne-am dus la Amsterdam.)

B: WHERE did you go?

(Unde ai fost?!)

(45) A: He is an astronaut.

(E astronaut)

B: WHAT is he?

(Ce e?!)

Such sentences often express surprise, consternation, disbelief, misunderstanding:

(46) A:My husband eats bugs.

(Sotul meu mananca insecte.)

B: He eats WHAT?

(Ce mananca_?!)

3. Explicatory Echo Questions - ask for the clarification, rather than the repetition, of something just said. The difference between recapitulatory and explicatory echo questions lies in the type of intonation they possess: as we have seen, with recapitulatory echo questions, intonation is rising, whereas with explicatory echo questions, intonation is falling:

(47) A: Take a look at this.

(Uita-te la asta.)

B: Take a look at WHAT?

(La ce sa ma uit?)

(48) A: Oh, dear, I've lost the letter.

(Vai, am pierdut scrisoarea.)

B: WHICH letter have you lost? (i.e. which letter do you mean, rather than did you say, you have lost?)

(Ce scrisoare ai pierdut?)

Activity 13 Formulate echo questions in relation to the underlined word and comment on their meaning:

My sister dyed herself green. / I think I've found a solution. / I think I've found a hair in my soup./ We are looking for a purse. / We are looking for a pixie. / He is interested in music./ He is interested in blue movies.

Optional

Activity 14 Translate the following:

Nu stiam unde ma duce, dar imi dadeam seama ca avea o tinta: dupa ce tacuse atata timp asupra a ceea ce as fi vrut sa aflu, acuma sporovaiala. Intre ce ani fusese studenta? . Terminase oare facultatea? Cum ajunsese caserita, asa, in general, si la Oraca indeosebi? Cine erau parintii ei? Fusese maritata? (nu, nu purta verigheta, dar . ) Care fusese anturajul ei in acei ani cand eu si Ion Micu frecventasem braseria? Venise si ea acolo des? Cu cine? si in ce sens era geloasa pe noi doi? Imi reteza, ca sa zic asa, din fasa dorinta de a-i pune aceste intrebari si o facea cu o capacitate de a vorbi si a nu spune nimic enorma prin cumul de cuvinte, care ascundeau un humor secret . Ce? parca spunea, nu e amuzant ca nu e amuzant ceea ce povestesc? Ei, da, era!

(Marin Preda - Cel mai iubit dintre pamanteni)

- Crezi tu, cumnata Fenia, ca iepusoara asta de Vica, care e fata lui Andrei Mortu, si care s-a aciuat, stricata, in satul nostru, crezi tu ca nu e ea in legatura cu hotul de Andrei, cu ta-su? Fereste-l, Fenio, pe Condrat de Vica, numai la oameni buni le-a sucit capul cu dragostea ei pacatoasa: lui Petre Litra, lui Stavre Paici, lui Chizlinski, lui Luca Horobet, oameni asezati, cu o casa de copii. Are gust de oameni blanzi, serpoaica, sa se incolaceasca mai bine, dupa pofte. Degeaba crezi ca a luat-o Condrat in ceata lui la pescuit, asta-toamna? Fereste-l Fenio, aveti si asa numai necazuri, si apoi Vica ce zice, acum pun mai bine mana pe Condrat, ca tot trebuie sa plece pe front. ( . )

Si de la Bogdaproste, unde crezi ca a rasarit Vica? La Babadag! Oras mare, cu cale ferata si cu geamie. Si cum crezi c-a rasarit Vica-n Babadag? In stamba inflorata, rosu si galben, pana la calcaie, si in cap cu piepteni albastri. In picioare - ti-ai gasit sa mai umble cu talpile goale! - umbla-n sandale de catifea alba cu catarami rotunde. Si cui crezi ca i-a sucit capul in Babadag? Lui Hogea, popa al tatarilor si al turcilor. L-a scos din geamie. Hogea, tinerel de saptezeci si opt de ani, curat ca peretii de Pasti. Oamenii de la Babadag - oameni subtiri, de oras - s-au facut n-aude n-a vede - de obrazul Hogii.

(Stefan Banulescu - Iarna barbatilor)