Question types
You may already recognize English questions when you see them. You may even have an idea of how questions are formed. But there are many different types of questions in English grammar, each with its own rules.
There are 5 essential types of questions in English Grammar:
- general questions
- special questions
- alternative questions
- tag questions
- subject questions
General or Yes/No Questions
Common questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” are logically called yes/no questions. The answer can be a brief “yes” or “no.” Or, a longer answer can be given: “Yes, I do.” “No, I don’t like this country.” The response to a question depends on the verb used.
Special or Wh-Questions
A special question, as you can guess, uses a certain word at the beginning of the sentence. We use special questions to get specific information. This implies that the answer will be more detailed. The questions words where, when, why, how, how many, etc., are used to begin the question:
Alternative questions or Choice questions
Choice questions are questions that offer a choice of several options as an answer. They are made up of two parts, which are connected by the conjunction or.
Choice questions can be either general or specific. If the question does not centre on the subject of the sentence, a complete answer is needed.
Disjunctive or Tag Questions
This type of question is also made up of two parts, where the first part is a positive statement, and the second part is negative, or vice-versa.
The first part of the sentence defines the expected answer. If the statement is positive, a positive answer is expected; if the statement is negative, a negative answer is expected.
Subject questions
These questions (who? what?) have their own special structure; they do not require an auxiliary verb, we replace the subject with the question word. You can see that after the question words who and what, the third-person singular form of the verb should be used.
