Yes/No Questions

By Yung-Chen Chung

What is a Yes/No question?

A Yes/No question wants either yes or

no as an answer.

Which sentence seems to be trying

to get yes or no as an answer?

Why did you send Bob an avocado in the

mail?

Did you send Bob an avocado in the

mail?

1. Why did you send Bob an avocado in

the mail?
2. Did you send Bob an avocado in the
mail?
The second sentence Did you send Bob an
avocado in the mail? seems to expect
either yes or no as an answer.
Therefore, it is a Yes/No question.

How to make a Yes/No question?

There are two ways to form

a Yes/No

question.
The first way to make a Yes/No question is
from statements with an overt auxiliary
verb (helping verb).
Hej !
Here is an example:
Maria can speak Swedish.

Step One: Find the helping verb.

Maria can speak Swedish

Helping verb

Step Two: Move the helping verb in

front of the subject, and
capitalize the first letter.

Maria can speak Swedish

Step Three: Add a question mark.

(?)

Can Maria speak Swedish ?

 The other way to form a Yes/No question

is from statements without an overt

auxiliary verb (helping verb).
Here is an example:

The boy lives in Taipei.

Step One: Find the helping verb

(Dig it up if its buried.).

The boy

does live

lives in Taipei

Step Two:
1.
2.
3.

Move the helping verb in front of the subject, and capitalize the
first letter of does.
Change the first letter of The to the lower case t.
Change the third person singular verb, lives, to its base form,
live.

The
t
boy does lives in Taipei

Step Three: Add a question mark.

(?)

Does the boy live in Taipei ?

One more thing you need to know

about the Yes/No questions!

The intonation of a Yes/No questions is

different from a statement.

Statement intonation:

The statement intonation in English usually rises and falls within

the last content word in the sentence.

Maria can speak Swedish.

Yes/No question intonation:

Yes/No question intonation rises sharply on the vowel in the

stressed syllable and then continues to rise slightly on the second
syllable.

Can Maria speak Swedish?

128.6. English as a Second Language

(ESL), Grade 4.

(b) Knowledge and skills.

(30) Second language acquisition/writing.
(A) use basic capitalization and punctuation correctly such
as capitalizing names and first letters in sentences and
using periods, question marks, and exclamation points.
(E) employ increasingly complex grammatical structures in
writing.
(i) demonstrate knowledge of verbs, tenses, and
auxiliaries, wh-words, and pronouns/antecedents;
(iii) demonstrate knowledge of parts of speech;
(F) construct correct sentences, including a variety of
sentence types and styles.