YES/NO INTERROGATIVES AND THEIR RESPONSES
In the yes/no type it is only the polarity that is in question. The speaker asks for confirmation or denial of the clause content, to be expressed by yes or no. Such minimal replies often sound rather abrupt, however:
A. Do you sell fish fingers?
B. No.
A. At all? You don’t? [KBC]
(B’s first response overlaps with A’s question; B’s reply might be):
B. You can get them from the supermarket.
A feature of spoken English is the use of ellipted responses such as Yes, it is, No, we don’t, I can’t, has he? based on the Subject-operator (declarative) and operator-Subject (interrogative) patterns. These are independent abbreviated clauses. They are used in response to questions, statements, exclamations and directives. They show more interest and involvement than a mere Yes or No, and even more than mere silence! In conversation they keep the talk alive by passing the turn from one speaker to another:
A. Always angry isn’t he?
B. He’s a sweet old man though.
A. Is he?
B. Gets me nice birthday presents.
A. Does he?
B. Mm. [KBL]
A common variant in AmE is the ‘copy tag’ with rising intonation, such as He does? This replaces A’s Does he? in the previous exchange. It is not common in BrE, although it resembles the BrE echo question. This repeats part, or all, of an immediately preceding utterance by another speaker. The motivation for using echoes is that the hearer did not comprehend, found difficult to believe, or did not hear properly what had been said:
I’m going to sell my golf clubs. Sell them?
What did you say to him? What did I say to him?
In interactive situations, in fact, a wide range of responses occurs, as speakers often express greater or less certainty about the proposition:
Have you got any stamps?
No, I don’t think I have, in fact I know I haven’t. [KCX]
