A fan of the blog wrote in and asked me the following question:
And to answer her question, no. No, you cannot tell if a person is asking a question no matter what language they speak because languages form questions in different ways. In fact, different dialects of the same language can form questions in very different ways. Off the top of my head, the three ways I can think of that languages form questions are:
Intonation is how you change the pitch of your voice when you're speaking. In English, when asking a yes/no question our pitch rises on the last syllable to indicate that we're asking a question. I'll use an arrow over the last syllable to indicate this.
Intonation: - - - - - ↗
Sentence: Have you got a minute?
Many languages have a similar rising tone at the end of the sentence to indicate a question, but not all do. Hungarian is pretty distinctive in that the rising tone is not on the last syllable but on the second to last, or penultimate one.
Intonation: - ↗ ↘
Sentence: Éhes vagy?
Translation: Hungry (you) are? (Are you hungry?)
Of course, some languages are called tonal languages, like Chinese or Thai. In these languages, the tone used changes the meaning of the word. Here's an example from Chinese. You can also hear the first four of these tones pronounced here (a lot of Chinese don't consider the fifth, or neutral tone to be an actual tone, so it doesn't always make these kinds of lists).
First tone (high and stable): 妈 mā - mother
Second tone (rising): 麻 má - hemp
Third tone (dipping): 马 mǎ - horse
Fourth tone (falling): 骂 mà - scold, curse
Fifth tone (neutral): 吗 ma - question particle
So if someone were to ask you a question in Chinese, you wouldn't be able to tell based on tone alone.
Tag questions are words that are "tagged" on to the end of a sentence, usually to turn a declarative sentence into a question. So, "You're coming" could be transformed into "You're coming, right?" You'll notice that the intonation on the tag question is a little bit different than simply rising at the end in that it rises and then falls again very quickly.
Also, not all dialects of English use the same tag words, which could cause confusion. In British English, a very common tag word is "innit." Here's a short article the BBC wrote several years ago about its usage. So if someone came to you and said, "Weather's nice, innit?", and you weren't familiar with that particular tag, you might be confused as to what exactly they were saying (especially with some of the nonstandard uses found on the BBC link). More so, in Malaysian and Singaporean English a common tag question is "can", as in "is it possible?" When we were visiting our friends in Kuala Lumpur the air conditioners in their house needed to be fixed. They called their landlord about it, and I overheard them asking something like, "You'll come at 11am to fix our air conditioner, can?" I think most native English speakers who haven't been to the Malaysian peninsula would find this confusing and not necessarily recognize it as a question.
Every language I've studied uses some kind of wh- words, which are question words that almost always start with wh-, which in English are who, what, where, when, why, which, and how. The thing about these words in English is that their presence alone is enough to indicate a question, so the intonation doesn't rise at the end of the sentence. In fact, the intonation for a question like, "What are you doing?" is basically exactly the same as the intonation for a declarative statement. So if you didn't know the wh- word, you wouldn't recognize that you were being asked a question.
Another vocabulary item that could be used is a particle, which is generally just a short syllable that is added to a sentence to turn it into a question. In Hungarian, this particle is "-e." It's usually used in writing to indicate a question (since word order doesn't change to indicate a question), but it can also be used in speaking:
Hungarian: Igaz-e?
Meaning: True-question particle (Is it true?)
Chinese uses particles as well to indicate questions, most notably 吗 ma, as in the question below:
Chinese: 你 好 吗？
Translit.: ní hǎo ma
English: you good question particle (Are you good? or How are you?)
(And don't anyone give me a hard time about writing ní as having the second tone instead of the third tone. In Chinese, two third tones can't go together, so the first one will turn into the second rising tone).
Of course, beyond all these I suppose there are also non-verbal cues that someone might be asking you a question, but these could also vary from culture to culture. So in short, languages form questions in lots of different ways, and I don't believe that you would necessarily be able to tell a question from a statement simply from hearing it if you were not already somewhat familiar with that language. Otherwise, if anyone else in addition to my mother has a question, feel free to send it to me, and I'll gladly do my best to answer it.
On page 9 of Hungarian An Essential Grammar by Carol H. Rounds there are illustrations of question intonations. How do those illustrations compare to questions in English or other languages? Can you tell if a person is asking a question no matter what language he speaks (or you speak)?Who am I kidding? The question was written by my mother. Hi mom! Look at me! I'm on the internet!
And to answer her question, no. No, you cannot tell if a person is asking a question no matter what language they speak because languages form questions in different ways. In fact, different dialects of the same language can form questions in very different ways. Off the top of my head, the three ways I can think of that languages form questions are:
- word order
- intonation
- vocabulary (tag question, wh- words, particles)
Word Order
One of the first things that should come to mind when forming questions in English is the word order. For instance, English usually follows a subject-verb-object sentence order, as in "You are hungry." However, if I want to ask a question, I have to move the verb to before the subject, "Are you hungry?" A handful of other languages do this, but in many others the word order doesn't change, and the only way to distinguish whether a statement is a declaration or a question is by intonation.
Of course, in English we can do the same thing. It just forms a different kind of question. When I ask "What did John eat?" it means I don't know the answer, and I'm inquiring. If, on the other hand, I ask, "John ate what?" it means that I probably do know the answer, I just can't believe it.
Intonation
Intonation is how you change the pitch of your voice when you're speaking. In English, when asking a yes/no question our pitch rises on the last syllable to indicate that we're asking a question. I'll use an arrow over the last syllable to indicate this.
Intonation: - - - - - ↗
Sentence: Have you got a minute?
Many languages have a similar rising tone at the end of the sentence to indicate a question, but not all do. Hungarian is pretty distinctive in that the rising tone is not on the last syllable but on the second to last, or penultimate one.
Intonation: - ↗ ↘
Sentence: Éhes vagy?
Translation: Hungry (you) are? (Are you hungry?)
Of course, some languages are called tonal languages, like Chinese or Thai. In these languages, the tone used changes the meaning of the word. Here's an example from Chinese. You can also hear the first four of these tones pronounced here (a lot of Chinese don't consider the fifth, or neutral tone to be an actual tone, so it doesn't always make these kinds of lists).
First tone (high and stable): 妈 mā - mother
Second tone (rising): 麻 má - hemp
Third tone (dipping): 马 mǎ - horse
Fourth tone (falling): 骂 mà - scold, curse
Fifth tone (neutral): 吗 ma - question particle
So if someone were to ask you a question in Chinese, you wouldn't be able to tell based on tone alone.
Vocabulary (Tag question, wh- words, particles)
Tag questions are words that are "tagged" on to the end of a sentence, usually to turn a declarative sentence into a question. So, "You're coming" could be transformed into "You're coming, right?" You'll notice that the intonation on the tag question is a little bit different than simply rising at the end in that it rises and then falls again very quickly.
Also, not all dialects of English use the same tag words, which could cause confusion. In British English, a very common tag word is "innit." Here's a short article the BBC wrote several years ago about its usage. So if someone came to you and said, "Weather's nice, innit?", and you weren't familiar with that particular tag, you might be confused as to what exactly they were saying (especially with some of the nonstandard uses found on the BBC link). More so, in Malaysian and Singaporean English a common tag question is "can", as in "is it possible?" When we were visiting our friends in Kuala Lumpur the air conditioners in their house needed to be fixed. They called their landlord about it, and I overheard them asking something like, "You'll come at 11am to fix our air conditioner, can?" I think most native English speakers who haven't been to the Malaysian peninsula would find this confusing and not necessarily recognize it as a question.
Every language I've studied uses some kind of wh- words, which are question words that almost always start with wh-, which in English are who, what, where, when, why, which, and how. The thing about these words in English is that their presence alone is enough to indicate a question, so the intonation doesn't rise at the end of the sentence. In fact, the intonation for a question like, "What are you doing?" is basically exactly the same as the intonation for a declarative statement. So if you didn't know the wh- word, you wouldn't recognize that you were being asked a question.
Another vocabulary item that could be used is a particle, which is generally just a short syllable that is added to a sentence to turn it into a question. In Hungarian, this particle is "-e." It's usually used in writing to indicate a question (since word order doesn't change to indicate a question), but it can also be used in speaking:
Hungarian: Igaz-e?
Meaning: True-question particle (Is it true?)
Chinese uses particles as well to indicate questions, most notably 吗 ma, as in the question below:
Chinese: 你 好 吗？
Translit.: ní hǎo ma
English: you good question particle (Are you good? or How are you?)
(And don't anyone give me a hard time about writing ní as having the second tone instead of the third tone. In Chinese, two third tones can't go together, so the first one will turn into the second rising tone).
Of course, beyond all these I suppose there are also non-verbal cues that someone might be asking you a question, but these could also vary from culture to culture. So in short, languages form questions in lots of different ways, and I don't believe that you would necessarily be able to tell a question from a statement simply from hearing it if you were not already somewhat familiar with that language. Otherwise, if anyone else in addition to my mother has a question, feel free to send it to me, and I'll gladly do my best to answer it.
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