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214
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.
They even put the car on the ship for you.
- They do, do they? Who takes it off again?
He brought these flowers, too. - He did, did he? - Yes.
Alternative questions
§ 11. 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 pronominal 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 pronominal question, the second a condensed
alternative question.
Would you prefer tea or coffee?
Shall we go to the cinema or to the football match?
Sometimes the alternative contains only a negation:
Will they ever stop arguing or not?
Suggestive questions
§ 12. 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?
- Yes, nothing could make me stay.
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?