Question tag (Vocabulary: Language Terms)

QUESTION TAGS (Vocabulary: Language Terms)

Also called Tag Questions, these turn a statement into a question. They look like this:

Statement + Short Question

• Example: Becky is your friend, isn't she?

The question part uses the statement's modal plus its subject, always in the pronoun form.

Becky is <--> isn't she (pronoun form of Becky)

In a positive statement, the question is negative.

In a negative statement, the question is positive.

• Example: Becky isn't from here, is she?

--------

Special cases: use--

• "aren't" for "am": I'm late, aren't I?
• "it" for "this" or "that": That's true, isn't it?
• "they" for "these" or "those": Those are the facts, aren't they?
• "there" for statements starting with "there": There's a hole in my sock, isn't there?
• "they" for "nobody," "someone," "everybody," etc.: Nobody's happy, are they?

Modals: do, be, have, will, can, must, should, could, would, etc.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)