The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook - Edward Woods, Rudy Coppieters 2002

13.3. Questions and answers 3
Unit thirteen. Information, reality and belief

Sections 245-248; 612; 684

Special types of question:

• Tag questions are shortened yes-no questions consisting of an operator and a subject pronoun. They are added to the end of statements to ask for confirmation. If the statement is positive, the tag question is negative, and vice versa.

• Yes-no questions with a negative form have a mixture of positive and negative bias and express surprise.

• If there are two wh-elements in a sentence, one of them is moved to the front or the two are coordinated.

• Questions can be made more polite by adding please or by using an introductory formula.

Task one *

Add question tags to the following statements, using contracted forms.

1. Kenny is being very naughty again.

2. Several dozen men didn’t turn up for work.

3. You can’t drive a lorry at all.

4. In some countries people eat horse meat.

5. It will take a long time before the situation is back to normal.

6. English spelling isn’t going to be changed.

7. There have been more reports of incidents near the border.

8. Speed limits should be reduced still further in some areas.

9. Deborah loves one of our local celebrities.

10. Some prisoners have never committed a crime.

11. These bigots are extremely hard to convince.

12. The police wouldn’t intimidate such young offenders.

Task two ***

Form question sentences with two wh-elements to match the following answers.

Examples: A: It happened in an underground car park shortly after midnight.

→ Q: Where and when did the shooting happen?

A: Larry was accusing Fred and Jim was accusing Tony.

→ Q: Who was accusing who(m) ?

1. Carol wants to visit an exhibition, and Joyce wants to visit an arts and crafts centre.

2. We gave it away to the neighbours, because they hadn’t got one yet.

3. Tim is flying to Honolulu, Ted is sailing to Madeira and Tony is hitchhiking to Turkey.

4. I killed it with a spade, early this morning.

5. She ordered six of them for tomorrow and ten for next Sunday.

6. This is Mr Cheng, over there is Mrs Udolpho, and the third person is Tracy, our secretary.

7. I’ve put the letters on your desk and the photos on the dresser.

8. Paul was driving 80 and Ralph 90 miles per hour.

9. It is going to take place in Singapore next summer.

10. The football fans stayed on to watch the game while the hooligans stayed on to pick a fight.