View source for Question

{{short description|Request for information}}
{{other uses}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Asking|Asking (song)}}
[[File:Question_in_a_question_in_a_question_in_a_question.gif|thumb|right|alt=A question mark made of smaller question marks|A question mark made of smaller question marks]]

A '''question''' is an [[utterance]] which serves as a request for [[information]]. Questions are sometimes distinguished from [[interrogative]]s, which are the [[grammar|grammatical]] forms, typically used to express them. [[Rhetorical question]]s, for instance, are interrogative in form but may not be considered [[wiktionary:bona fide|bona fide]] questions, as they are not expected to be answered.

Questions come in a number of varieties. For instance; ''[[Polar question]]s'' are those such as the [[English language|English]] example "Is this a polar question?", which can be answered with [[yes and no|"yes" or "no"]]. ''Alternative questions'' such as "Is this a polar question, or an alternative question?" present a list of possibilities to choose from. ''[[Open-ended question|Open question]]s'' such as "What kind of question is this?" allow many possible resolutions.

Questions are widely studied in [[linguistics]] and [[philosophy of language]]. In the subfield of [[pragmatics]], questions are regarded as [[illocutionary act]]s which raise an issue to be resolved in [[discourse]]. In approaches to [[Formal semantics (natural language)|formal semantics]] such as [[alternative semantics]] or [[inquisitive semantics]], questions are regarded as the [[denotation]]s of interrogatives, and are typically identified as [[Set (mathematics)|set]]s of the [[proposition]]s which answer them.

== Definitions ==
Linguistically, a question may be defined on three levels.

At the level of [[semantics]], a question is defined by its ability to establish a set of logically possible answers.<ref name="CGEL">Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) ''[[The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language]].'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-43146-8}}.</ref>

At the level of [[pragmatics]], a question is an [[illocutionary]] category of speech act which seeks to obtain information from the addressee.<ref name="CGEL"/>

At the level of [[syntax]], the [[interrogative]] is a type of clause which is characteristically associated with questions, and defined by certain grammatical rules (such as [[subject–auxiliary inversion]] in English) which vary by language.

Some authors conflate these definitions. While prototypical questions (such as "What is your name?") will satisfy all three definitions, their overlap is not complete. For example "I would like to know your name." satisfies the pragmatic definition, but not the semantic or syntactic ones. Such mismatches of form and function are called [[indirect speech acts]].

== Uses ==
[[File:A_Question_of_Honor_(1922)_-_7.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A man asking a woman a question|A man asking a woman a question]]
The principal use of questions is to elicit information from the person being addressed by indicating the information which the speaker (or writer) desires.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Searle |first1=J |title=Speech acts |date=1969 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge}}</ref>

A slight variant is the [[display question]], where the addressee is asked to produce information which is already known to the speaker.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Searle |first1=J |title=Speech acts |date=1969 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=69}}</ref> For example, a teacher or game show host might ask "What is the capital of Australia?" to test the knowledge of a student or contestant.

A direction question is one that seeks an instruction rather than factual information. It differs from a typical ("information") question in that the characteristic response is a directive rather than a declarative statement.<ref name="CGEL"/> For example:

:A: When should I open your gift?
:B: Open it now.

Questions may also be used as the basis for a number of indirect speech acts. For example, the [[imperative sentence]] "Pass the salt." can be reformulated (somewhat more politely) as:

:Would you pass the salt?

Which has the form of an interrogative, but the illocutionary force of a directive.

The term [[rhetorical question]] may be colloquially applied to a number of uses of questions where the speaker does not seek or expect an answer (perhaps because the answer is implied or obvious), such as:

:Has he lost his mind?
:Why have I brought you all here? Let me explain...
:They're closed? But the website said it was open until 10 o'clock.

[[Loaded question]]s (a special case of [[complex question]]s), such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass an audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm.

== Semantic classification ==
The main semantic classification of questions is according to the set of logically possible answers that they admit. An open question, such as "What is your name?", allows indefinitely many possible answers. A closed question admits a finite number of possible answers. Closed questions may be further subdivided into yes–no questions (such as "Are you hungry?") and alternative questions (such as "Do you want jam or marmalade?").

The distinction between these classes tends to be grammaticalized. In English, open and closed [[Interrogative word|interrogatives]] are distinct clause types characteristically associated with open and closed questions, respectively.

=== Yes–no questions ===
{{main|Yes–no question}}

A ''yes–no question'' (also called a ''polar question'',<ref name="CGEL"/> or ''general question''<ref name="Chisholm">William Chisholm, Louis T. Milic, John A.C. Greppin. Interrogativity. – John Benjamins Publishing, 1982.</ref>) asks whether some statement is true. They can, in principle be answered by a [[yes and no|"yes" or "no"]] (or similar words or expressions in other languages). Examples include "Do you take sugar?", "Should they be believed?" and "Am I the loneliest person in the world?"

=== Alternative questions ===
An ''alternative question''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnAlternativeQuestion.htm |title=What is an alternative question?|publisher=SIL International |work=Glossary of linguistic terms |editor1-last=Loos |editor1-first=Eugene E. |editor2-last=Anderson |editor2-first=Susan |editor3-last=Day |editor3-first=Dwight H. Jr. |editor4-last=Jordan |editor4-first=Paul C. |editor5-last=Wingate |editor5-first=J. Douglas }}</ref> presents two or more discrete choices as possible answers in an assumption that only one of them is true. For example:

:Are you supporting England, Ireland or Wales?

The canonical expected answer to such a question would be either "England", "Ireland", or "Wales". Such an alternative question [[presupposes]] that the addressee supports one of these three teams. The addressee may [[cancellation (linguistics)|cancel]] this presupposition with an answer like "None of them".

In English, alternative questions are not syntactically distinguished from yes–no questions. Depending on context, the same question may have either interpretation:
*Do these muffins have butter or margarine? [I'm on a low fat diet.]
*Do these muffins have butter or margarine? [I saw that the recipe said you could use either.]
In speech, these are distinguishable by [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]], i.e., the question is interpreted as an alternative question when uttered with a rising contour on "butter" and a falling contour on "margarine".

=== Open questions<span id="wh"></span> ===
An ''open question'' (also called a ''variable question'',<ref name="CGEL"/> ''non-polar question'', or ''special question''<ref name="Chisholm" />) admits indefinitely many possible answers. For example:

:Where should we go for lunch?

In English, these are typically embodied in a closed interrogative clause, which uses an [[interrogative word]] such as ''when'', ''who'', or ''what''. These are also called ''wh''-words, and for this reason open questions may also be called ''wh''-questions.

== Question formation ==
Questions may be marked by some combination of word order, [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], interrogative words, and [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]]. Where languages have one or more [[clause]] type characteristically used to form questions, they are called [[interrogative]] clauses. Open and closed questions are generally distinguished grammatically, with the former identified by the use of [[interrogative word]]s.

In [[English grammar|English]], [[German grammar|German]], [[French grammar|French]] and various other (mostly European) languages, both forms of interrogative are subject to an [[inversion (linguistics)|inversion]] of word order between verb and subject. In English, the inversion [[Subject–auxiliary inversion|is limited to auxiliary verbs]], which sometimes necessitates [[Do-support|the addition of the auxiliary ''do'']], as in:

::a. Sam reads the newspaper. {{small|- Statement}}
::b. Does Sam read the newspaper? {{small|- Yes–no question formed using inversion and ''do''-support}}

=== Open questions ===
Open questions are formed by the use of [[interrogative word]]s such as, in English, ''when'', ''what'', or ''which''. These stand in as variables representing the unknown information being sought. They may also combine with other words to form interrogative phrases, such as ''which shoes'' in:

:Which shoes should I wear to the party?

In many languages, including English and most other European languages, the interrogative phrase must (with certain exceptions such as [[echo questions]]) appear at the beginning of the sentence, a phenomenon known as [[wh-fronting]]. In other languages, the interrogative appears in the same position as it would in a corresponding declarative sentence (''in situ'').<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Chapter 93: Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions|chapter-url=http://wals.info/chapter/93|title=World Atlas of Language Structures|author-first1=Matthew S. |author-last1=Dryer|year=2013|editor-last1=Dryer|editor-first1=Matthew S. |editor-last2=Haspelmath|editor-first2=Martin|access-date=15 April 2021}}</ref>

A question may include multiple variables as in:

:Whose gifts are in which boxes?

=== Polar questions ===
Different languages may use different mechanisms to distinguish polar ("yes-no") questions from declarative statements (in addition to the [[question mark]]). English is one of a small number of languages which use word order. Another example is French:

{| class="wikitable"
|+
!
!French
!Translation
|-
!Declarative
|''Vous avez tué un oiseau.''
|You have killed a bird.
|-
! Polar question
|''Avez-vous tué un oiseau?''
|Have you killed a bird?
|}

Cross-linguistically, the most common method of marking a polar question is with an [[interrogative particle]],<ref name="WALS-polar">{{cite web|title=Chapter 116: Polar Questions|url=http://wals.info/chapter/116|work=World Atlas of Language Structures|access-date=15 April 2021}}</ref> such as the [[Japanese language|Japanese]] {{lang|ja|か}} ''ka'', [[Standard Mandarin|Mandarin]] {{lang|zh|吗}} ''ma'' and [[Polish grammar|Polish]] ''czy''.

Other languages use verbal morphology, such as the ''-n'' verbal postfix in the [[Tunica language]].

Of the languages examined in the [[World Atlas of Language Structures]], only one, [[Atatláhuca–San Miguel Mixtec]], was found to have no distinction between declaratives and polar questions.<ref name="WALS-polar"/>

==== Intonation ====
Most languages have an intonational pattern which is characteristic of questions (often involving a raised pitch at the end, as in English).

In some languages, such as English, or Russian, a [[rising declarative]] is a sentence which is syntactically declarative but is understood as a question by the use of a rising intonation. For example, "You're not using this?"

On the other hand, there are English dialects (Southern Californian English, New Zealand English) in which rising declaratives (the "[[uptalk]]") do not constitute questions.<ref>[[Paul Warren (professor)|Paul Warren]]<!--https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/Paul.Warren--> (2017) "The interpretation of prosodic variability in the context of accompanying sociophonetic cues", Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 8(1), 11. {{doi|10.5334/labphon.92|doi-access=free}} (Paper presented at the Third Experimental and Theoretical Approaches to Prosody workshop)

* More on uptalk of this author: Paul Warren, ''Uptalk: the phenomenon of rising intonation'', Cambridge University Press. 2016, {{ISBN|978-1107123854}} (hardcover), ([https://www.amazon.com/Uptalk-Phenomenon-Intonation-Paul-Warren-ebook/dp/B017205HLC kindle edition])</ref> However it is established that in English [[Rising declarative|there is a distinction]] between ''assertive'' rising declaratives and ''inquisitive'' rising declaratives, distinguished by their [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]].

==== Request for confirmation and speaker presupposition ====
Questions may be phrased as a request for confirmation for a statement the interrogator already believes to be true.

A [[tag question]] is a polar question formed by the addition of an interrogative fragment (the "tag") to a (typically declarative) clause. For example:

:You're John, {{underline|aren't you?}}
:Let's have a drink, {{underline|shall we?}}
:You remembered the eggs, {{underline|right?}}

This form may incorporate speaker's [[presupposition]] when it constitutes a [[complex question]].
Consider a statement
:(A) Somebody killed the cat
and several questions related to it.
:(B) John killed the cat, did he?  (tag question)
:(C) Was it John who killed the cat?
As compared with:
:(D) Who killed the cat?
Unlike (B), questions (C) and (D) incorporate a presupposition that somebody killed the cat.

Question (C) indicates speaker's commitment to the truth of the statement that somebody killed the cat, but no commitment as to whether John did it or did not.<ref name="saltpet">[[Stanley Peters]], "Speaker commitments: Presupposition", ''Proceedings of the Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (SALT)'' 26: 1083–1098, 2016, ([https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/download/26.1083/3703 (download PDF)])</ref>

=== Punctuation ===
In languages written in [[Latin alphabet|Latin]], [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] or certain other scripts, a [[question mark]] at the end of a sentence identifies questions in writing. As with intonation, this feature is not restricted to sentences having the grammatical form of questions – it may also indicate a sentence's [[pragmatics|pragmatic]] function.

In [[Spanish language|Spanish]] an additional [[¿|inverted mark]] is placed at the beginning: ''¿Cómo está usted?'' "How are you?". An uncommon variant of the question mark is the [[interrobang]] (‽), which combines the function of the question mark and the [[exclamation mark]].

== Responses and answers<span id="Responses"></span> ==
{{See also|Yes–no question#Answers|Answer ellipsis}}

The [[Cambridge Grammar of the English Language]] distinguishes between an ''answer'' (being a member of the set of logically possible answers, as delineated in {{slink||Semantic classification}}) and a ''response'' (any statement made by the addressee in reply to the question).<ref name="CGEL"/> For example, the following are all possible responses to the question "Is Alice ready to leave?"

 i.  (a) Yes.
     (b) She's ready.
     (c) No, she's not.
 ii. (a) I don't know.
     (b) Why do you ask?
     (c) She might be.
 iii.(a) She's still looking for her wallet.
     (b) She wasn't expecting you before 5 o'clock.
     (c) I'll let you know when she's ready.

Only the [i] responses are answers in the Cambridge sense. The responses in [ii] avoid committing to a ''yes'' or ''no'' answer. The responses in [iii] all ''[[implicature|implicate]]'' an answer of ''no'', but are not logically equivalent to ''no''. (For example, in [iiib], the respondent can cancel the implicature by adding a statement like: "Fortunately, she packed everything up early.")

Along similar lines, Belnap and Steel (1976) define the concept of a ''direct answer'':

<blockquote>A direct answer to a given question is a piece of language that completely, but just completely, answers the question...What is crucial is that it be effectively decidable whether a piece of language is a direct answer to a specific question... To each clear question there corresponds a set of statements which are ''directly'' responsive. ... A direct answer must provide an unarguably final resolution of the question.<ref>[[Nuel Belnap]] & T.B. Steel Jr. (1976) ''The Logic of Questions and Answers'', pages 3, 12 & 13, [[Yale University Press]] {{ISBN|0-300-01962-9}}</ref>
</blockquote>

=== Answering negative questions ===
{{main|Yes and no}}

"Negative questions" are interrogative sentences which contain negation in their phrasing, such as "Shouldn't you be working?" These can have different ways of expressing affirmation and denial from the standard form of question, and they can be confusing, since it is sometimes unclear whether the answer should be the opposite of the answer to the non-negated question. For example, if one does not have a passport, both "Do you have a passport?" and "Don't you have a passport?" are properly answered with "No", despite apparently asking opposite questions. The Japanese and Korean languages avoid this ambiguity. Answering "No" to the second of these in Japanese or Korean would mean, "I ''do'' have a passport".

A similar ambiguous question in English is "Do you mind if...?" The responder may reply unambiguously "Yes, I do mind," if they do mind, or "No, I don't mind," if they do not, but a simple "No" or "Yes" answer can lead to confusion, as a single "No" can seem like a "Yes, I do mind" (as in "No, please don't do that"), and a "Yes" can seem like a "No, I don't mind" (as in "Yes, go ahead"). An easy way to bypass this confusion would be to ask a non-negative question, such as "Is it all right with you if...?"

Some languages have different particles (for example the [[French language|French]] "''si''", the [[German language|German]] "''doch''" or the [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Danish language|Danish]], and [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] "''jo''") to answer negative questions (or negative statements) in an affirmative way; they provide a means to express contradiction.

== [[Indirect]] questions ==
As well as direct questions (such as ''Where are my keys?''), there also exist [[indirect question]]s (also called ''interrogative content clauses''), such as ''where my keys are''. These are used as [[subordinate clause]]s in sentences such as "I wonder where my keys are" and "Ask him where my keys are." Indirect questions do not necessarily follow the same rules of grammar as direct questions.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.elc.edu/english-grammar-lessons-indirect-questions/|title=Indirect Questions - English Grammar Lesson - ELC|date=2017-11-27|work=ELC - English Language Center|access-date=2018-01-24|language=en-US|archive-date=2018-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125015201/https://www.elc.edu/english-grammar-lessons-indirect-questions/|url-status=dead}}</ref> For example, in English and some other languages, indirect questions are formed without inversion of subject and verb (compare the word order in "where are they?" and "(I wonder) where they are"). Indirect questions may also be subject to the changes of [[grammatical tense|tense]] and other changes that apply generally to [[indirect speech]].

== Learning ==
Questions are used from the most elementary stage of learning to original research.  In the [[scientific method]], a question often forms the basis of the investigation and can be considered a transition between the observation and hypothesis stages.  Students of all ages use questions in their learning of topics, and the skill of having learners creating "investigatable" questions is a central part of [[inquiry education]].  The [[Socratic method]] of questioning student responses may be used by a teacher to lead the student towards the truth without direct instruction, and also helps students to form logical conclusions.

A widespread and accepted use of questions in an educational context is the assessment of students' knowledge through [[exam]]s.

== Origins ==
Enculturated apes [[Kanzi]], [[Washoe (chimpanzee)|Washoe]], [[Sarah (chimpanzee)|Sarah]] and a few others who underwent extensive language training programs (with the use of gestures and other visual forms of communications) successfully learned to ''answer'' quite complex questions and requests (including question words "who", "what", "where"), although so far they have failed to learn how to ''ask questions themselves''. For example, [[David Premack|David and Anne Premack]] wrote: "Though she [Sarah] understood the question, she did not herself ask any questions — unlike the child who asks interminable questions, such as What that? Who making noise? When Daddy come home? Me go Granny's house? Where puppy? Sarah never delayed the departure of her trainer after her lessons by asking where the trainer was going, when she was returning, or anything else".<ref>{{cite book |title=The mind of an ape |first1=David |last1=Premack |first2=Ann J. |last2=Premack |year=1983 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |location=New York; London |page=29}}</ref> The ability to ask questions is often assessed in relation to comprehension of [[syntactic structure]]s. It is widely accepted that the first questions are asked by humans during their early infancy, at the pre-syntactic, one word stage of [[language development]], with the use of question [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language |last1=Crystal |first1=David |year=1987 |publisher=Cambridge University |location=Cambridge |pages=241, 143}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{div col}}
* [[Curiosity]]
* [[Erotetics]], the logic of questions and answers
* [[Inquiry]]
* [[Interrogation]]
* [[Interrogative word]]
* [[Inquisitive semantics]]
* [[Leading question]]
* [[Question under discussion]]
* [[Sentence function]]
* [[Squiggle operator]]
* [[Confusion]]
* ''[[Who Asked the First Question?]]'', a book
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
{{Wiktionary}}
{{wikiquote}}
* Berti, Enrico. ''Soggetti di responsabilita: questioni di filosofia pratica'', Reggio Emilia, 1993.
* Fieser, James; Lillegard, Norman (eds.). Philosophical questions: readings and interactive guides, 2005.
* Hamblin, C.L. "Questions", in: Paul Edwards (ed.), [[Encyclopedia of Philosophy]].
* Muratta Bunsen, Eduardo. "Lo erotico en la pregunta", in: Aletheia 5 (1999), 65–74.
* Stahl, George. "Un développement de la logique des questions", in: Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger 88 (1963), 293–301.
* Smith, Joseph Wayne. Essays on ultimate questions: critical discussions of the limits of contemporary philosophical inquiry, Aldershot: Avebury, 1988.

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Grammar]]
[[Category:Human communication]]
[[Category:Interrogative words and phrases]]
[[Category:Sentences by type]]