What is a yes-no question?

Definition
	A yes-no question is a question for which an answer of yes or no is acceptable.
	In some languages, a yes-no question is formally distinguished by features, such as
	rising sentence-final intonation a sentence-initial or sentence-final particle verb morphology a difference of word order, such as the placement of the verb closer to the beginning of the sentence than in the declarative sentence, and an interrogative clitic that attaches to the item in the sentence that is being questioned.

Generic
	A yes-no question is a kind of
	What is a question?

Sources
	Elson and Pickett 1988 108
	Crystal 1980 294, 387
	Lyons 1977b 754
	Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985 806
	Sadock and Zwicky 1985 181–182

Context for this page:

Concept module: yes-no question
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): Y
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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