Pragmatics – Interrogative Sentences In Linguistics

Interrogative Sentences In Linguistics - Questions, or interrogative sentences in linguistics, are broadly defined as utterances that require a verbal response from the addressee (Carter, 2006: 715). This type of illocution attempts to elicit particular information, typically in the form of an answer. The interrogative sentence asks a question, closed with an interrogation point and in the form of a question (Curme and George O., 1931; Merriam-Webster‟s Collegiate Dictionary, 1998). Interrogative sentences frequently occur in the conversations, for example: when asking about an event happened in the past.

Questions may range from forms involving imperatives, to simple interrogatives, interrogatives with modal verbs, indirect interrogatives, declaratives and reduced questions. Different questions have different pragmatic functions relating with formality, politeness, directness, dependence on immediate context, projections of shared knowledge degrees, etc.

Linguists have different opinions about question classification. Carter (2006) characterizes question types into five functional aspects of questions based on the complexity of interrogative structure and reply. Questions are classified into major question and minor question. Major question involves yes-no question, tag question, declarative question, WH question, and alternative question. Minor question involves exclamatory question, rhetorical question, echo question, and display question. 

 There are some less famous question classifications. Day and Park (2005: 21) classify questions based on its form. There are seven types of questions; yes/no, alternative, open-ended, multiple choice, true-false, cloze, and matching questions. Every question has different functions.