Chapter IV, Part 3
IV.C.2
The Interrogative Clause Type for Questions
26.
For the Interrogative Clause, mainly used in Questions
conveying Uncertainty, the unmarked option is also End Weight, but for
another reason. Normally, the Front of the Clause is used for establishing that
a Question is being asked, and signalling what kind, whilst the End specifies
what is being asked about. Questions often have rising Uncertain Stresses but
either a rising or falling Pitch contour.
27.
In the
Question-Word
Question (versus
the Anglocentric term
‘wh-’ Question) is named for the Word at the Front. End
Weight
just keeps rising
to Certain Strong Stress and puts the whole Question in focus, e.g., to ask
about for the motive
behind a ‘made difference’
[1003], or of
a known
‘killing’ of
a known victim. 1004]. Mid
Weight rises up to a Certain Strong Stress on the specific part of
the Question being asked
about. e.g., ‘winter’ as distinct from other seasons
[1005] or the identity of that
‘fire-eater’ who’s just left [1006]; and the rest of the Tone Group picks
a falling contour, as in
Statements like [961-962].
28. Pronoun Question-Words such as ‘who’ and ‘what’ ca n e followed directly by the Process Verb; the Adverb Question-Words such as ‘why’ or ‘where’ take an Auxiliary or ‘be’ and then Subject and Process Verb [1003-04]. Either type can have Strong Stress for End Weight, rising for the one [1003-04]. falling for the other [1005-06].
29. I would also interpret a more reserved, gentler version (as if to say ‘okay, we both know about this, so what’s the deal?’) falling all the way from a Strong Stress on the Question Word, and only Weak Stresses
afterward. An isolated Question-Word spoken as a Tone Group with surprise or fear might get an emphatic Spiked Stress with the Pitch either rising fast [1009] or falling fast [1010].
In contrast, an isolated Question-Word Question which the speakers themselves go on to answer can receive Uncertain Strong Stress, with the Pitch starting low and rising high [1011-15].
30. Uncertain Strong Stress also goes to Question-Words in short, abrupt, or surprised Questions about some Expression in the Turn of a previous speaker, e.g., a Person [1016], Thing [1018], or Action [1018].
31. The Yes-or-No Question expects an Affirmative or a Negative answer and uses no Question Words. The unmarked option has an Auxiliary (or ‘be’), and then Subject and Process Verb, the latter extended by various Colligations such as Affected Object [1019], Adverbial of Circumstance [1020], or Subject Complement of Identity [1021]; all these can take End Weight with Uncertain Strong Stress fitting the rising Pitch contours which carries along any subsequent Syllables, as shown. Having the Process Verb at the Front instead of an Auxiliary, once an unmarked option in older English, is now archaic or literary, as in Shakespeare [1022]. As always, the Pitch contours and Stresses are displayed here with distinctive arrows.
32. When the Yes-or-No Question has a Declarative form, the Uncertain Strong Stress is quite vital [1023-24].16 More than the Interrogative form, the Declarative form may suggest that the Topic of the Question is not just undecided but dubious, e.g., having been the ‘friend’ of a person whose ‘whereabouts the police are ‘tracing’ on suspicion of ‘having killed her husband’ in [1023]; or ‘not caring for the conversation’ of a ‘smirking muscle man’ mafioso who makes his hearer ‘feel very afraid’ in [1024].
33. As for Statements in IV.19, ‘alternative Pitch’ applies
for Questions too: one Pitch contour rising from the front, and one falling after a Stress in the middle.
The term This-or-That Question might fit a choice between alternatives linked by ‘or’, giving rising Uncertain Stress to all but the last one, which gets falling Certain Stress, whether with two choices [1027], or, less commonly, three [1028] or even four [1029]. This Pattern can also appear with ‘and’ linking two genuine alternatives, e.g. [1030]. As we see, a Question-Word may or may not appear.
34. Tag Questions are the only Tag regularly described in ‘grammar-books’ on English,17 with functions unlike the Tag Statements reviewed in IV.21. Whereas there we had two Statement Clauses with the same function of affirming, here we have one Statement Clause and one Question Clause with contrasting functions. The unmarked Look-Back Tag Question has the form of an Interrogative Yes-or-No Question following a Statement in Declarative form. This Tag too is a minimal Clause with just the Subject as Pro-Noun and the Predicate as Pro-Verb; as befits a Question, the unmarked order is just the reverse of the usual Statement Tag and places the Pro-Verb with a Weak Stress before the Unstressed Pro-Noun. In compensation, as with Tag Statements, the position within the Statement just before the Tag Question usually has a Strong Stress for End Weight.
35. The Tag Question is a popular Pattern for mildly encouraging confirmation
from the audience about what should be Certain or Uncertain. Here, Certainty and
Polarity interact by contraries. A Negative Tag after an Affirmative Statement
encourages a ‘yes’ Answer [1031-32], whereas an Affirmative Tag after a Negative
Statement encourages a ‘no’ Answer [1033-34]. Two Affirmatives, however, suggest
a more pointed Uncertainty [1035-36]; and suitably emphaticProsody can even suggest scepticism or challenge, while the Pronoun gains Weak
Stress too [1037-38]. A Negative Tag without contractions (technically
‘correct’ for the First Person Singular) gives one Weak Stress to ‘not’
and one to the Pro-Verb [1039-40].
[1031]
‘I’m a !sod,
|
ˇaren’t
I?’ he said flatly. ‘Yes’. (Strawberries)
[1032]
‘This uncertainty is hard on the !nerves,
|
ˇisn’t
it?’ ‘Yes. It is.’ (Hand in Glove)
[1033]
‘I’m not exactly a gibbering !wreck,
|
ˇam
I?’ ‘No’ (Love by Design)
[1034]
‘It’s not really the height of the concert season, |
ˇis it?’ ‘No’ (committee meeting)BNC
[1035]
‘This is the !room,
|
ˇis
it?’ said
the gentleman. (Pickwick)
[1036] ‘It’s all !right, then, |ˇis it?’ asked Marie anxiously. ‘Coming round to your house like this?’ (Lock)
[1037]
How dare you! So I’m an object of !pit·y,
| ˇam
ˇI?
(Killing Frost)
[1038]
That’s your !er·rand,
| ˇis ˇit? What! he con·!doles with me,
|
ˇdoes ˇhe? (Vanity)
[1039]
It’s a funny old !world,
| ˇis it ˇnot? (Punch)
[1040] I am treating you very !bad·ly,
| ˇam
I ˇnot? (Healing Fire)
36. An uncommon type of Look-Back Tag
Question occupies a separate Utter-ance coming after a Question Clause and
reaffirming the Questioning. When the Uncertainty is intense, the Auxiliary
earns Strong Stress [1041-42].
[1041] Are you just
kidding me on? ||
!Are you?
(medical consultation)BNC
[1042] And is he Liverpool? ||
!Is
he? (conversation)BNC
More common and less intense, ‘is that it?’ seeks to
confirm something doubtful and disquieting, such as refusing to ‘marry’
[1043] or being a ‘thief’ [1044].
[1043]
But you’d never marry me because I ain’t good enough, is
ˇthat !it?
(Rich Pass)
[1044] he had been shocked […] ‘Now you are a thief? Is ˇthat !it?
I don’t understand.’ (Good Terrorist)
Or, a Look-Back Tag Question in another Conversational
Turn takes the Pattern of a Pro-Verb Auxiliary bearing Strong Stress plus a
Pro-Noun. Both Affirmative and Negative can signal some interest, curiosity, or
scepticism [1045-46], whose force increases when Strong Stress combines with
slow Pace and high Pitch [1047-48].
[1045] ‘Mr
Pickwick, sir, I have sent up my card.’ ‘!Have
you?’ (Pickwick)
[1046]
‘I don’t believe I know your name!’ ‘!Don’t you? My, that’s funny!’ (Babbit)
[1047] ‘Captain
Cuttle’s at home, I know,’ said Walter. ‘!Is
he?’ replied the widow lady. ‘Indeed!’ ‘He has just been speaking to
me’, said Walter. ‘!Has he?’ (Dombey)
[1048] ‘They don’t want him to
go.’ ‘!Don’t
they?’ I said, curiously. (Darkness)
The
Pronoun in the Tag can either fall down to low Pitch to indicate your interest
in what was said; or take on rising Pitch to indicate you feel doubtful.
37.
The Double Look-Back Tag is realised by a left-right mirror-image
Pattern. First comes a Statement Tag with falling Pitch, unstressed Pronoun, and
Auxiliary at Strong Stress; then comes a Question Tag with rising Pitch,
Interrogative Auxiliary at Weak Stress, and the same unstressed Pronoun. In my
data, the Tags are either both Affirmative [1049-50] or else both Negative
[1051-52].
[1049] ‘And
I detest your three chairs and a bolster.’ ‘You !do, ˇdo you?’ (Stoops)
[1050] ‘He’s
shocked at the way your father goes on in’. ‘Oh, he !is,
ˇis
he?’ (Pickwick)
[1051] ‘My name
isn’t Betsy, ma’am.’ ‘It !isn’t, ˇisn’t it?’ ‘No; it is Grace.’
(Cash)
[1052] ‘I wouldn’t give a dern for
spunk-water.’ ‘You !would·n’t,
ˇwould·n’t
you?’ (Sawyer)
The double Tag can signal deeper Uncertainty than the single Tag about the State-ment in the previous Turn.
38.
Some varieties of English may appreciate the functions of Question Tags but find
the range of forms rather unwieldy. South African English generalises the Tag
Questions ‘is it?’ [1053] or ‘izzit?’ [1054] and ‘isn’t it?’
[1055] for all Persons and Tenses.18 The British Negative Tag ‘innit?’
(= ‘isn’t it’), though popular, occurs in my data almost entirely in
matching Third Person Singular after an Affirmative [1056], and rarely in other
Persons [1057]; or after a Negative [1058].
[1053]
I now can get into Agricultural College, ˇis it?
[1054] ‘Ag,
shame’ said the Afrikaner. ‘You want a Little England, ˇiz·zit?’ (Zululand)www
[1055]
Things are going to be awright, ˇisn’t it? (Butcherbird)
[1056] Even her name’s funny, ˇin·nit? (Sweet
Promises)
[1057] they’re dissolvable
plastic ˇinnit? (conversation)BNC
[1058] it’s a load of cobblers,
it’s frigging wrong. It’s not fair. Innit? (conversation)BNC
One
might feel reminded of the handy general Tags in other languages, like French
‘n’est-ce-pas?’, Portuguese ‘năo é?’, or German ‘nicht wahr?’
39.
The simplest option of all in spoken English would be the brief Question Tags
with Uncertain Weak Stress, like ‘what?’ or ‘eh?’, mostly indicating
that the Statement is barely uncertain and hardly needs to be confirmed.
[1059]
We’ll have a gallop down to Lambs Dell and then up to home, ˇwhat? (With You)
[1060] And it’s all in God’s purpose and plan, ˇeh? (Three Times Table)
The
Look-Ahead Tags ‘what?’ and ‘how’ with Uncertain Strong Stress can
signal that a Yes-or-No-Question is called for and forthcoming:
[1061] From out of the hide trailed the pink blanket. ‘!What, are you stopping up here nights?’ (Jubilee Wood)
[1062] ‘I’d like tae know how she’s getting on’. ‘!How, are ye thinking of going tae Lon-don? (Might Have Been)
40. The Prosody for Question Tags is sampled below. The whole Utterance may have rising Pitch, whether the Clause before the Tag is an Affirmative or Negative Statement [1063-64]; the Tags put Uncertain Weak Stress on the Pro-Verb, and don’t rise so high as the Statements. But if Tag is a separate Utterance [1041] or Turn [1045], the Pro-Verb may take an emphatic Uncertain Strong Stress higher than the preceding Tone Group. The Double Tag has one falling Pitch down toward a Certain Stress, and one rising Pitch up from an Uncertain Stress [1051]. A Strong Stress mostly occurs near the end of the Tone Group ahead of the Tag.
Prosody
thus helps Tags with simple forms to serve such strategic functions as
encouraging confirmation in some interactions and resisting it in others.
41.
Like the Declarative, the Interrogative has received considerable attention in
studies of English; but the picture has been more balanced both for Pitch
contours and for Question Tags (cf. IV.25). Here for once, ‘formal’ written
English has not been so overweening.
42.
The Exclamatory Clause
for Exclamations conveying notable Certainty
is the Major Clause Type least studied in conventional descriptions or
‘grammars’ of English. It may be deemed unsuitable for ‘formal’ usage;
or it may ruffle (what’s left of) ‘British reserve’. Besides, it is most
strongly linked with Attitudes and Emotions, mainly Pejorative ones like
indignation or surprise; in BNC data, I find ‘exclamation(s) of’ in
Collocations with Items like ‘horror, disgust, fury, regret, frustration,’ And the Exclamation
is the disaffected Major Clause Type in ‘formal style’.
43. The two most distinctive options are signalled by Exclamation-Word Exclamations, which favour Front Weight over End Weight. One option starts with the Exclamation Word ‘what’ getting Weak Stress, low Pitch, and slow Pace. Then follows a Noun Phrase at high Pitch starting a falling Pitch contour and put-ting at least one Certain Strong Stress on the earliest suitable Item [1065-66], this bearing the focus of the Attitude or Emotion; with more than one Strong Stress, as in [1067], the greatest Volume goes to the last (on ‘cloud’). The stressed Item may be the Subject of an Active [1065], but is more often a part of the Predicate, such as an Object [1066], or a Subject Complement [1067], followed by the real Subject (mostly as an unstressed Pronoun) and then the Verb with Weak Stress that stays away from End Weight. In the other distinctive option, the Exclamation Word ‘how’ at Weak Stress, low Pitch, and slow Pace is followed by an Adjective [1068], or an Adverb[1069], or a Noun Phrase [1070]. all of these again at high Pitch starting a falling Pitch contour, taking Certain Strong Stress, and bearing the focus of the Attitude or Emotion. Then come Subject and Verb, one or both taking Strong or Weak Stress. The Pitch contour is thus much the same as for the Exclamatory form with ‘what’.
The curious fact that in various related languages, the same Set of Items (e.g., English‘what’ and ‘how’, German ‘was’ and ‘wie’, or Italian ‘che’ and ‘como’), can serve as either Question-Words and Exclamation-Words may suggest residual traces of a functional affinity within an implicit mirror image balance between notable Uncertainty and notable Certainty. But I see no way so far to decide this conjecture.
4. The two options may have other Pitch contours. Once again parallel to Questions (shown in IV.29), a more reserved, gentler version can start with ‘what’ or ‘how’ at highest Pitch for Front Weight and then a falling contour to an End with Weak Stress [1065, 1068-69]. Conversely, less reserve can be shown by assigning Strong Stresses to suitable items for both Front Weight and End Weight, as in [1070-71], and may occur in between as well [1072], fitting their Pitch to the contour and exploiting the Volume and Pace to stand out. Yet Front Weight probably still occupies the focus of Attitude or Emotion, and is both stronger and higher than any Strong Stress later on; and the Pitch contour steadily falls after the Front.
Yet with either ‘what’ or ‘how’, just End Weight wins if a Subject and Verb follow [1073-74].
45. A third major option for Exclamations does not have the distinctive Exclamatory form but rather a form like the Interrogative in a Yes-or-No Question (IV.31) — still another parallel. Naturally, the function of an Exclamation demands a different Prosody, balancing Front Weight against End Weight. The Negative predominates, mostly with a Certain Strong Stress on the Auxiliary or ‘be’ at the start for Front Weight, and a more emphatic Certain Strong Stress for an intense End Weight that now bears the focus of the Attitude or Emotion [1075-76]. The less common Affirmative is more likely to put Weak Stress on the Auxiliary, and an Emphatic Strong Stress both on the Subject and on the End Weight [1077-78]. In all of these, the Pitch contour is falling from the first Strong Stress until the End. Both Polarities express high Certainty, but the Affirmative can signal surprise or indignation too. Neither need require a response of confirmation
46. The function of Exclamations can take the form of Declarative with more emphatic Strong Stress than Statements, using Mid Weight: ending one falling Pitch begun at the Front, and starting another one at Strong
Stress
[1079-80]. We might try to describe these as ‘emphatic Statements’ rather than ‘Exclamations’;
but, as with Questions (IV.32), the Declarative form can suggest something
special. Here, the Attitude or Emotion is not focused on the content of some
Noun Phrase or an Adjective with Strong Stress but directed at the entire
Utterance, e.g., ‘they’, immigrants with Swedish heritage (of all people),
being smeared as ‘ghastly hired girls’ as a pretext for denying them proper wages in [1079]; or ‘you’,
a woman pretending to a be princess (of all people) being a unmasked as a
‘swineherd’s daughter’ in [1080].
47.
Exclamations can enhance Front Weight by fronting Items that mostly come near
the End, an option for Statements too (IV.20). Here too, the Strong Stress gets
high Pitch to start a falling Pitch contour; Volume is louder; and Pace is
slower.
[1081] Roland gave me a new tennis racquet […] !Thor·ough·ly !spoilt I was! (letter)BNC
[1082] Like !drownd·ed !rats, we was! Not a dry
stitch on (Diggers)
But
unlike Statements, the Fronted Item can readily be linked to a Relative Clause
by ‘that’ [1083-84]. Here too, earliest Strong Stress occurs at high Pitch.
[1083] !Stu·pid !block·head that I was! (Wildfell)
[1084] !Shame·less !daugh·ter of a domineering sire that she was! (Egoist)
With
no Independent Clause, this Pattern might not count as a genuine Sentence. The
Fronted Items could be Subject Complements for the Pronouns in the Relative
Clause. Or, they might be Non-Clauses carrying a Dependent Clause (cf. IV.87).
48. Exclamation-Word Exclamations are nearly always
Affirmative rather than Negative, e.g., not [1066a, 1068b]; in apparent
exceptions like [1085-87], ‘what’ and ‘how much’ are not
Exclamation-Words but Objects of Verbs. Options with Interrogative form can be
Negative [1085-87], e.g. in literary style; yet all of these are still Affirmative in function, e.g., that Elinor Dashwood
was
‘tempted
to
forgive’ a great deal, and that Little Paul Dombey was the ultimate in
‘beautiful Cupid’-ity.
[1066a] *What sense
you don’t talk!
[1068a] *How normal those trees didn’t look!
[1085]
What have I not suffered! (Wrongs)
[1086]
How much could it not tempt her to forgive! (Sense)
[1087] Is he not
beautiful Mr. Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir! (Dombey)
Nor
do we find two Exclamations linked by ‘or’ as undecided alternatives using a
rising and then falling Pitch contour [1065a], an option that is open to the
other three Major Clause Types (IV.19, 33, 66).
[1065a] *What !mad·ness
pos·ˇsessed her! or what !non·sense
she ˇtalked
Evidently, the function of Exclaiming requires that something
be decidedly the case.
49.
If the Exclamation Mark is a fully reliable indicator, the function of
Exclaiming is quite expansive, available for emphatic versions of the Statement
[1088], the Question [1089], or the Command [1090].
[1088] ˇYou !shan’t
be be·!head·ed!
(Alice)