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215
- 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?
You sound surprised.
Because of their main communicative function, suggestive questions are very useful as leading questions to
get exact information, as seen in the following passage:
You mean to say he at no time asked you the actual purpose of your visit?
- Not at that interview.
-
And it did not occur to you to force this information on him ?
- Indeed it did...
Pronominal questions
§13.
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 pronominal 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).