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In linguistics and grammar, affirmation (abbreviated AFF) and negation (NEG) are ways in which grammar encodes positive and negative polarity into verb phrases, clauses, or other utterances. An affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while
These are referred to as balanced tag questions. Unbalanced tag questions feature a positive statement with a positive tag, or a negative statement with a negative tag; it has been estimated that in normal conversation, as many as 40–50% [2] of tags are unbalanced. Unbalanced tag questions may be used for ironic or confrontational effects:
Their functions as word sentence responses to yes–no questions are taken up by sentence adverbs, single adverbs that are sentence modifiers and also used as word sentences. There are several such adverbs classed as truth-value adverbs—including certe , fortasse , nimirum , plane , vero , etiam , sane , videlicet , and minime (negative).
It can therefore be considered to be a positive polarity item (PPI). On the other hand, at all is licensed by the negative environment of sentence (2), but anti-licensed by the positive environment of sentence (3), and is therefore considered a negative polarity item (NPI).
According to Grimes, the answer "yes" asserts a positive answer and the answer "no" asserts a negative answer, irrespective of the form of the question. [2] However, simple "yes" or "no" word sentence answers to yes–no questions can be ambiguous in English.
Indirect yes–no questions can be expressed using if or whether as the interrogative word: Ask them whether/if they saw him. Negative questions are formed similarly; however, if the verb undergoing inversion has a contraction with not, then it is possible to invert the subject with this contraction as a whole. For example:
Interrogative sentences are generally divided between yes–no questions, which ask whether or not something is the case (and invite an answer of the yes/no type), and wh-questions, which specify the information being asked about using a word like which, who, how, etc.
The declarative sentence is the most common kind of sentence in language, in most situations, and in a way can be considered the default function of a sentence. What this means essentially is that when a language modifies a sentence in order to form a question or give a command, the base form will always be the declarative.