5. Intonation in questions

5.1 Wh questions

Wh questions (= question-word questions, special questions) are those that are formed with a question word such as who, that, which, when, where, why, how. They ask for a more specific answer than just ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

• Where is my knife?

• Why are you complaining?

The default tone for wh questions is a fall. As with statements, this tone meaning is the definitive fall:

• When did you arrive?

• Who’s that?

Nevertheless, a wh question can also be said with a non-fall: a rise or, less commonly, a fall-rise. This has the effect of making it more gentle, kindly and encouraging, sympathetic or differential, as opposed to the businesslike fall. We call this tone meaning the encouraging rise.

• When did you arrive?

• What’s the time?

Contrast the two tone meanings, definitive fall and encouraging rise:

(i) Why are you angry? (unmarked)

(ii) Why are you angry? (interested, sympathetic)

(i) What’s your name? (unmarked, businesslike)

(ii) What’s your name? (encouraging, kindly)

A separate type of wh question is the echo question.

A short wh question that the speaker immediately answers himself (one type or rhetorical question) usually has an interested rise:

• - I’m coming back.

- Why?

- Because I love you.

• - We can conquer poverty.

- How?

- By educating workforce.

• - You can’t go.

- Why not?

- Because I say so.

5.2 Yes-no questions

Yes-no questions (= general questions, polar questions) ask whether something is the case or not. Such questions are capable of meaning being answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (though there may be other possible answers such as ‘perhaps’ or ‘I’m not sure’). The default tone for a yes-no question is a rise. We call it the yes-no rise.

• Are you ready?

• Is that the time?

• Will you be at the meeting?

Yes-no questions can be positive or negative. Whatever their polarity, they usually have a yes-no rise:

• Won’t you be at the meeting?

• Haven’t you finished yet?

• Don’t you like your soup?

Some utterances with the grammatical form of yes-no interrogatives are not questions so much as requests. They, too, usually have a yes-no rise:

• Would you pass me the water?

• Will you send him a letter?

• Couldn’t I take the car?

It is also possible for a yes-no questions to be said with a fall. This makes the question more insistent. It is more businesslike, more serious, perhaps more threatening. We call this tone meaning for yes-no questions the insistent fall.

A: I’ll ask you once more: Did you take the money?

B: No, I didn’t.

A: Can you prove that?

The insistent yes-no falls is often used in guessing games:

A: Guess where I come from.

B: From France?

A: No.

B: From Italy, then?

A: No.

B: D’you come from Spain?

The insistent yes-no fall is also regularly used when a speaker repeats a question because the other person didn’t hear it properly:

A: Have you come far?

B: Sorry?

A: I said, have you come far.