216 Sentences Exercise 13.1 Underline the verbs in the following questions and label each question as either yes-no or information. yes-no Will you mail the letters at the post offi ce for me? 1. Can you determine the exact cost? 2. Whom did the police fi nally arrest for the crime? 3. How much can we afford? 4. Have they decided yet? 5. Was the ending of the movie really surprising? 6. Why should they want that? 7. Is the phone ringing? 8. Has it been raining all day? 9. Must they insure it for the full amount? 10. Will you be ready by six? 11. How much would it cost? 12. Will my using my cell phone disturb you? 13. Why should we care about it? 14. Has Lois approved it yet? 15. How often will we be meeting over the next couple of weeks? Yes-no questions There are two different ways that English forms yes-no questions: yes-no questions and tag ques- tions. Here is an example of each: Yes-no question: Are you ready to go? Tag question: You are ready to go, aren’t you? Since tag questions always involve negatives, we will postpone dealing with them until the next section on negatives. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 216 3/16/09 12:34:20 PM Questions and Negatives 217 The basic characteristic of yes-no questions is that the subject and verb are inverted. In a statement, the normal word order is subject ϩ verb. In yes-no questions, the subject and verb have been inverted so that the word order is verb ϩ subject. Here are some more examples with the subject in italics and the verb in bold: Statement Inverted yes-no question We should call them. Should we call them? Bill is sick. Is Bill sick? I can come, too. Can I come, too? They will be home late. Will they be home late? You are leaving tonight. Are you leaving tonight? He has lost his mind. Has he lost his mind? Only a handful of verbs can be used in forming inverted yes-no questions. The vast majority of verbs cannot be inverted. For example: Statement word order Inverted word order John works in New York. X Works John in New York? He commutes from Princeton. X Commutes he from Princeton? His parents live in California. X Live his parents in California? (If you think these inverted questions have a vaguely Shakespearean or King James Bible ring to them, you are absolutely correct. Up until the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was per- fectly grammatical to form yes-no questions by inverting the fi rst verb with the subject, no matter what the fi rst verb was: helping verbs and main verbs alike both inverted with the subjects.) There is no standard name in traditional grammar for the verbs in modern English that can be inverted to form yes-no questions. The verbs that can be inverted are made up of just the fol- lowing three groups of verbs: 1. Modal auxiliary verbs: These include can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would. Here are some examples of questions formed with modal auxiliary verbs: Statement word order Inverted word order We can drive there. Can we drive there? I may see you later. May I see you later? You would like them. Would you like them? Note: In traditional grammar will is singled out from the other modal auxiliary verbs as part of the future tense. Actually, there is nothing special about will from a grammatical point of view— it is just another one of the modal auxiliary verbs. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 217 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM 218 Sentences 2. Helping verbs: The helping verbs are be and have. They help to form the progressive and perfect tenses. Progressive: be (am, is, are, was, were) Perfect: have (have, has, had) Here are some examples of questions formed with helping verbs: Statement word order Inverted word order He is leaving soon. Is he leaving soon? John was staying there. Was John staying there? They have been very busy. Have they been very busy? She had returned his e-mail. Had she returned his e-mail? 3. Main verbs: In American English, the only main verb that can be used to form yes-no questions is be (am, is, are, was, were). Here are some examples of questions formed with the main verb be: Statement word order Inverted word order The kids are at school. Are the kids at school? Jane is an accountant. Is Jane an accountant? He is here. Is he here? Note: In British English have used as a main verb can also be inverted to form yes-no questions. We will discuss the difference between the British and American use of have as a main verb later in this chapter. Exercise 13.2 Turn the following statements into yes-no questions. Underline the verb(s) in the question and identify whether the fi rst verb is a modal auxiliary, helping verb, or main verb. John has locked the gates. helping verb Has John locked the gates? 1. We are ready to leave soon. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 218 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM Questions and Negatives 219 2. You can translate that into Spanish. 3. The kids were very happy with their presents. 4. I should decline a second helping of your terrifi c dessert. 5. They will be able to fi nance it by themselves. 6. The French fi lmmakers have infl uenced his movies a lot. 7. Her criticism is of great concern to the board. 8. I’m working on it. 9. He should postpone his trip. 10. They are just kidding. 11. It has gone on too long. 12. He could have done it differently. 13. They are in big trouble about this. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 219 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM 220 Sentences 14. That will stain the carpet. 15. We are turning around at the next corner. To this point, we have formed yes-no questions from statements that contained verbs that can be inverted: the nine modal auxiliary verbs, the two helping verbs (be and have) and the main verb be (ignoring the British use of the main verb have for the moment). What happens, however, when the statement does not contain any of these verbs? The answer is unique to English: we insert into the sentence what amounts to a dummy auxiliary verb. This dummy verb takes away the tense marker from the main verb (just like any modal auxiliary or helping verb) so that the main verb becomes an uninfl ected base form. The dummy verb, in its present or past tense form, is then inverted with the subject just like any other auxiliary verb. This dummy verb, is, of course, the verb do. Here are some examples using this dummy auxiliary verb. Let’s start with a simple sentence: John smiled. We cannot invert the verb smiled because it is neither an auxiliary verb nor a helping verb. What we do instead is insert the dummy auxiliary verb do in front of the main verb smiled. We will call this process the do insertion rule. After do has been inserted just in front of the verb, we will automatically transfer the tense marker from that verb to do. (All we are really saying is that the fi rst verb must always carry the present or past tense marker.) In our example, do picks up the past-tense marker from smiled so that do becomes did and smiled, having lost its past-tense marker, reverts back to its base form smile. The do insertion rule has now produced this intermediate sentence: John did smile. This is a perfectly grammatical sentence. It is a kind of emphatic version of the original sentence. It emphasizes that John really did smile, even though it is not something that we would normally expect of John. (This emphatic use of do as a kind of special-purpose auxiliary verb is the actual historical source of the do used in yes-no questions and negatives in modern English.) This intermediate sentence now contains an auxiliary verb that can be inverted in the nor- mal way to produce an ordinary yes-no question: John did smile. ⇒ Did John smile? (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 220 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM Questions and Negatives 221 Here are some more examples of changing statements to yes-no questions using the interme- diate step of forming an emphatic do statement: Statement Emphatic do statement Yes-no question The TV works. The TV does work. Does the TV work? She got the answer. She did get the answer. Did she get the answer? He returned it. He did return it. Did he return it? It rained. It did rain. Did it rain? I care. I do care. Do I care? Exercise 13.3 Turn the following statements into yes-no questions using the do insertion rule to form an emphatic do statement. He shut the window. Emphatic do statement Yes-no question He did shut the window Did he shut the window? 1. He installed the program. 2. Tom fell down. 3. Ralph bought a camera. 4. Ruth swims every day. 5. The meeting lasted hours. 6. They trust each other. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 221 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM 222 Sentences 7. The boss quit yesterday. 8. They tried really hard. 9. The wind damaged it. 10. Bob retires soon. 11. She loaned him her car. 12. He wrecked her car. 13. She got really angry. 14. He paid for the damages. 15. She still talks to him. Exercise 13.4 Change the following sentences directly to their corresponding yes-no questions. Notice that some verbs will require do and some will not. Underline all the verbs in both the statement and the yes-no question. Statement Yes-no question The CEO has approved the deal. Has the CEO approved the deal? The CEO approved the deal. Did the CEO approve the deal? 1. They guessed the right answer. 2. You can combine the results. (i-viiiB,001-328B) whl bk.indd 222 3/16/09 12:34:21 PM . alike both inverted with the subjects.) There is no standard name in traditional grammar for the verbs in modern English that can be inverted to form yes-no questions. The verbs that can be inverted. later? You would like them. Would you like them? Note: In traditional grammar will is singled out from the other modal auxiliary verbs as part of the future tense. Actually, there is nothing special. we be meeting over the next couple of weeks? Yes-no questions There are two different ways that English forms yes-no questions: yes-no questions and tag ques- tions. Here is an example of each: Yes-no