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In languages written in Latin, 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 pragmatic function.
A question like this, which has the same form (except for intonation) as a declarative sentence, is called a declarative question. In some languages this is the only available way of forming yes–no questions – they lack a way of marking such questions grammatically, and thus do so using intonation only.
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as what, which, when, where, who, whom, whose, why, whether and how. They are sometimes called wh-words , because in English most of them start with wh- (compare Five Ws ).
In the wh-movement, there are additional segments that are added: EPP (extended projection principle) and the Question Feature [+Q] that represents a question sentence. The wh-movement is motivated by a Question Feature/EPP at C (Complementizer), which promotes movement of a wh-word from the canonical base position to Spec-C.
In the fifth century, Syriac Bible manuscripts used question markers, according to a 2011 theory by manuscript specialist Chip Coakley: he believes the zagwa elaya ("upper pair"), a vertical double dot over a word at the start of a sentence, indicates that the sentence is a question. [2] [3]
The declarative sentence is the most common kind of sentence, and can be considered the default form: when a language forms a question or a command, it will be a modification of the declarative. A declarative states an idea (either objectively or subjectively on the part of the speaker; and may be either true or false) for the purpose of ...
The sentence can be read as "Reginam occidere nolite, timere bonum est, si omnes consentiunt, ego non. Contradico. " ("don't kill the Queen, it is good to be afraid, even if all agree I do not. I object."), or the opposite meaning " Reginam occidere nolite timere, bonum est; si omnes consentiunt ego non contradico.
English tag questions, when they have the grammatical form of a question, are atypically complex, because they vary according to at least three factors: the choice of auxiliary, the negation and the intonation pattern. This is unique among the Germanic languages, but the Celtic languages operate in a very similar way.