Tag-questions or Question Tags

Introduction

A “Tag-question or Question Tag” is rather like a ‘reply question’ we add to our Statement or Imperative sentence, like a price tag tied to an item for sale. It is made up of an Auxiliary (helping verb) + a Personal Pronoun in Nominative Case.

It is used at the end of the main part of a Statement or Imperative Sentence to ask for confirmation or something we are not certain about, or just to ask for agreement.

A ‘Tag-question’ means something like “Is this true?” or “Do you ( Don’t you) agree?”

e.g.

You are the new watchman, aren’t you?

(‘You are the new watchman’ — main part of the sentence — ‘are’ – verb ‘aren’t you’ — tag-question —  ‘aren’t’ – verb)

Some grammarians prescribe that the sentence, starting from the first ‘You’ to the question mark (?) at the end is the “Question Tag” and the question part at the end ‘aren’t you?’ is the “Tag-question”.  But some others use either name for the end part “aren’t you?”.

Whatever be the name, the rules and the examples are the same.

So learners are not to be worried about the name given to this type of sentence.  You get the same rules either way.  The main point is to understand, learn and use this structure correctly!

[For power presentation slides, please, click here tag.questions. For continuity, please keep clicking after each feature in each slide.]

1. A ‘Tag-question’ is not used with an Interrogative Sentence which is already a question.

e.g.

Are you the new clerk?  — Interrogative Sentence (a question by itself)

Are you the new clerk, aren’t you? — [wrong]

You are the new clerk, aren’t you? — [correct]     (a statement sentence)

2. The ‘Tag’ is made on the Main Verb of the main part of the Statement or Imperative Sentence. when the main verb is in the positive, the tag verb is in the negative; when the main verb is in the negative, the tag verb is in the positive.

e.g.

You like fish, don’t you?

(‘like’ – verb in the main part – positive; ‘don’t’ – negative in the tag part)

You do not like fish, do you?

(‘do not like’ — verb in the main part – negative; ‘do’ – positive in the tag part)

3. The negative verb form in the ‘tag’ is, in almost all the cases, used in its contracted form:   is = is not = isn’t;    do = do not = don’t;    has = has not = hasn’t;

may = may not = mayn’t …

is not = isn’t

*am not = aren’t

are not = aren’t

will not = won’t

was not = wasn’t

shall not = shan’t

were not = weren’t

do not = don’t

cannot = can’t

did not = didn’t

must not = mustn’t

has not =  hasn’t

could not = couldn’t

have  not =  haven’t

would not = wouldn’t

Remember that though ANOMALOUS take the negative directly, Non-anomalous Verbs do not take the negative directly but take the help of ‘do/does’ in Simple Present Tense and ‘did’ in Simple Past Tense to form negative.

Do not use “isn’t it?” for every tag! The verb in the ‘tag’ is made on the verb in the main part!!

e.g.

You like fish, don’t you?

She likes fish, doesn’t she?

You liked fish, didn’t you?

She liked fish, didn’t she?

The verb words ‘don’t’, ‘doesn’t’ and ‘didn’t’ are the auxiliary (helping) verbs, helping the non-anomalous verbs ‘like’, ‘likes’ and ‘liked’ to form negative.

*The contracted form of ‘am not’ is controversial.  Different grammarians have different opinions.  Some say “ain’t I” is acceptable; a few say that there is nothing wrong in using “amn’t I” but most agree on the use of “aren’t I” being the best alternative.   We, at this basic level, do take the most standard one, and so, in this course material, we take “aren’t I” to be the contracted form of ‘am not I’ for granted.

4. Though the main part of a sentence has a common or proper noun as its subject,  the ‘tag’ takes only the corresponding Personal Pronoun of that noun. When a Personal Pronoun is the subject, however, the same Pronoun is used as it is.

e.g.

Ahmed is the best boxer in town, isn’t he?

(‘Ahmed’ –  3^rd person — singular – male – PROPER NOUN

‘he’ – 3rd person – singular — male – personal pronoun)

Mary does not cook at home, does she?

(‘Mary’ – 3^rd person – singular – female – PROPER NOUN

‘she’ – 3^rd person – singular — female – personal pronoun

The children cried for toys, didn’t they?

(‘The children’ – 3^rd person – plural – common gender – COMMON NOUN

‘they’ –  3^rd person – plural — common gender – personal pronoun)

Your dog bites its own tail, doesn’t it?

(‘Your dog’ – 3^rd person – singular – (neuter) common gender – COMMON NOUN

‘it’ – 3^rd person – singular – (neuter) common gender – personal pronoun)

You have all passed the test, haven’t you?

(‘You’ – 2^nd person – plural (all) – common gender – PERSONAL PRONOUN

‘you’ –  2^nd person –  plural — common gender – personal pronoun)

Exceptions:

5. With the Imperative Mood Sentences, however, the ‘tag’ is not made on the main verb of the main part, but the standard ‘tag’ “will you?” is used.

e.g.

Leave me alone, will you? [IMPERATIVE SENTENCE]

Close the door, will you?

6. The verb word “let’s” (= let us — some suggestion) takes ‘shall + we?’ in the ‘tag’.

e.g.

Let’s go out for a drink, shall we?

7. The statement sentences with words such as neither, no, none, no one, no body, nothing, scarcely, barely, hardly, hardly ever, seldom, etc. which are, strictly speaking, treated as negative, are followed by an ordinary positive ‘tag’.

e.g.

No salt is allowed, is it?

Nothing was lost, was it?

Lee hardly worked, did he?

Sarah seldom visits us, does she?

8. When the subject of the main part of the sentence is anyone, anybody, no one, nobody, none, neither, everyone, somebody, someone, everybody, etc., we use the Personal Pronoun “they” as the subject of the ‘tag’ part.

e.g.

Neither of them explained, did they?

I don’t suppose anyone will help us, will they?

Everybody has left, haven’t they?

[‘everybody’ – singular + ‘has’ singular; ‘they’ – plural + ‘have’ plural]

9. The apostrophe and ‘s’ (’s) with the Nouns and Personal Pronouns (other than the function of showing the possession) in the Subject of the main part, used before a verb word, can be “is or has”; and (’d) can be “had or would”.

(“Abe’s car was stolen.”  Here the “apostrophe and s” show possession.  The next word after Abe’s is ‘car’ which is a noun. This sentence gives us the meaning: ‘The car of Abe was stolen.’) But the question here is not with nouns that follow the nouns or pronouns in the subject part of a sentence, but with the verb words used as parts of a verb.

e.g.

She’s going.

He’s done it.

I’d like to have some coffee.

She’d have gone there…

We are bound to make mistakes in identifying the  ’s or ’d — whether it is “has or is” or “had or would”.

The difficulty of identifying the form becomes simple when we follow the explanation: if the other part of the Verb is in ‘past participle’ V3 form, the apostrophe and s mean “has” but if the other part is in ‘present participle (ing)’  form, they mean “is”.  And the same is the case with ’d, too. If the other part of  the verb is in past participle V3 form, they mean “had”, and if the other part is in  bare-infinitive form, they mean “would”.

e.g.

Sam’s gone mad, hasn’t he?

(‘gone’ is the past participle V3 form of the verb word ‘go’, and so the apostrophe and s mean “has”)

Sam’s going home, isn’t he?

(‘going’ is the present participle (ing) form of the verb word ‘go’, and so the apostrophe and s mean “is”)

He’d written the report before you called him, hadn’t he?

(‘written’ is the past participle V3 form of the verb word ‘write’, and so the apostrophe and d mean “had”)

He’d like to have some rest, wouldn’t he?

(‘like’ is the bare-infinitive form of the verb word ‘like’, and so the apostrophe and d mean “would”)

10. Negative interrogative without contraction is sometimes possible in ‘Tag’, but the word order is different.  This type of construction is used to show disbelief or doubt or even to give more force to the expression.

e.g.

You saw him stealing the purse, did you not?

*11. ‘Will you’, ‘won’t you’, would you’, ‘can you’, ‘can’t you’ and ‘could you’ are used in ‘tag-questions’ after imperative mood sentences [refer to item 5].

They are actually not questions: they mean something like “please”!

[‘Won’t’ is used to invite somebody; ‘will’, ‘would’, ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ are used to tell people to do things.]

e.g.

Do sit down, won’t you? [inviting somebody politely]

Give me a hand, will you? [asking somebody to help]

Open the door, would you?

[asking somebody to open the door politely]

Shut up, can’t you? [ordering somebody to keep quiet]

**12. After a negative imperative verb word in the main part of the sentence,

only ‘will you’ is used in the ‘tag’.

e.g.

Don’t wake me up early in the morning, will you?

***13.  In this type of construction, we use positive verb in the ‘tag’ even if the

verb in the main part of the sentence is positive.  When use this positive verb in the ‘tag’, we almost mean ‘really’ or ‘indeed!’.

e.g.

You saw him going, did you? [= Oh, so you saw him going]

You’ve found a job, have you? [= Ah, finally you got a job!]

<<< Back to The Verb /  Next Additions to Remarks >>>

****************************************

Related Posts

• No Related Post