A question is any of several kinds of linguistic expressions normally used by a questioner to request the presentation of information back to the questioner, in the form of an answer, by the audience. Alternatively, one may say that the question ''is'' the request itself, and the interrogative Sentence (linguistics) merely expresses it, but we will not use this sense. Questions thus resemble other requesting expressions as well as commands in normally being used to elicit a response. Indeed some expressions, such as "Would you pass the butter?", have the grammatical form of questions but function as requests for action, not for answers; these will be treated under request rather than here. Questions have a number of secondary uses: They may be used ("Socratically") to guide the questioner along an avenue of research. A rhetorical question is asked in order to make a point, and does not expect an answer (often the answer is implied or obvious). Presuppositional questions, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass the audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm. Questions can also be titles of works of art and literature (e.g. Leo Tolstoy's short story ''How Much Land Does a Man Need?'' and the movie ''What About Bob?''). ==Grammar== In grammar, most languages distinguish interrogative sentences that put questions from declarative sentences that state propositions by syntax. Some devices used by languages for marking questions include: *A different tonal pattern (often a raised tone near the end of the sentence) *A marked word order different from the usual word order in statements (see wh-movement) *An interrogative mood or some other verb inflection such as the subjunctive mood *A grammatical particle (cf Japanese language ''ka'', Mandarin Chinese language ''ma'') Combinations of any of the above are possible, as well as alternative patterns for different types of questions. For example, English employs the syntactic approach (word order change) for common questions, but resorts to raising the tone and leaving the word order as it is for focused (emphatic) questions such as "You did ''what''?". Spanish language changes the word order only when interrogative pronouns are involved (not in yes-no questions). In languages written in the Latin alphabet, the question mark (or, in the case of Spanish language, a pair of them) identifies questions orthographically. ==Questions and answers== The simplest questions implicitly or explicitly request information from a certain range (finite or infinite) of alternatives. When information purporting to be that requested is presented back to the questioner, the question is said to be ''answered''. The information thus presented is called an ''answer''. Answers may be ''right'' or ''wrong''. They are wrong if they present false information. If they present information from outside the proferred alternatives, they may be called wrong or simply inappropriate or irrelevant. This depends on the context, as do several other possibilities: Sometimes "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, sometimes even a right answer. The same is true of "None of the above" and "There is no answer." An answer is the, or a, right answer, if it presents true information which falls within the determined range of alternatives. Questions of this simplest sort usually begin with ''Who'', ''what'', ''which'', ''where'', ''when'', ''does''/''do'', ''is''/''are''. Other questions do not so easily fit this mold. For example, questions beginning "Why" and "How" often request any information at all that will alleviate certain confusion in a person who wants to ask that question. Here the manner in which the information is presented might be more important than which information is presented; the questioner may even already know all of the information contained in the right answer, and merely needs it to be expressed in a more useful form. Ultimately, the interregotive pronouns (those beginning ''wh...'' in addition to the word ''how''), derive from the Indo European root Xwa, which in germanic languages softened to ''hwa'', and in latin and romance languages (e.g. spanish) hardened to ''que''. In English, a typographical error in copying by a series of monks is responsible for the transposition of the ''h'' and ''w'', although Received Pronunciation still preserves the original sound (i.e. ''hw...'' rather than ''wh...''). ''Who'' (and its dative - ''whom'', genitive - ''whose'', instrumental case - ''why'', neuter - ''what'', and neuter dative - ''where'') derive from ''hwa'' directly (and its other cases - ''hwaem'', ''hwaes'', ''hwi'', ''hwaet'', and ''hwaer''). ''Which'' is a compound - ''hwa'' and ''(ge)lik'', meaning ''what like''. ==Learning== Questions are used from the most elementary stage of learning to original research. In the scientific method, a question often forms the basis of the investigation and can be considered a transition between the observation and hypothesis stages. Students of all ages use questions in their learning of topics, and the skill of having learners creating "investigatable" questions is a central part of inquiry education. The Socratic method of questioning student responses may be used by a teacher to lead the student towards the truth without direct instruction, and also helps students to form logical conclusions. ===See also=== ''The Logic of Questions and Answers'' (1976), by Nuel D. Belnap and Thomas B. Steele.
CSB Articles Is there any point in keeping this page? --User:Woggly 13:11, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) Yes, see my justification of the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page. When I wrote this it was intended to be unstubbed by people with more background in philosophy than me. There are many more types of questions. I do agree that recent edits with links to List of famous questions have not done the page any good. User:Jfdwolff 15:10, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Discussion from VfD (consensus to keep) == Dic defn moved here from speedy deletions - this is not a vote. User:Theresa knott 13:48, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. There's lost of philosophy surrounding "questions". I do favour a revert to my original; the link to list of famous questions doesn't do it any good. User:Jfdwolff 15:01, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. Agree with Jfdwolff. User:Warofdreams 15:32, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Change my vote to Keep, due to added content.--User:Woggly 09:18, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Delete. Seems more like a dictionary definition. User:Sander123 15:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * I do not think a page which may include a good study on ''to be or not to be, that is the question,'' ought to be deleted. Keep and let's hope someone will improve it. User:Pfortuny 15:59, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Delete - there's nothing there. If anybody decides they want to do a philosophical treatment of questions, they can make a new one. -- User:Cyrius 20:22, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC) * Keep and list on cleanup. Good topic, some good material and some mistakes, already more than a stub. User:Andrewa 23:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. Grammar good missing tonal indicatorquestion Could cover more topics e.g. learning & teaching with questions, children. -- User:Zigger 20:42, 2004 Mar 28 (UTC) * Keep. An important concept in research, as well as education. I've put in a little about them. --User:Zandperl 04:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) == A few things I'd like to see == * Information on questions and their grammatical structure in other languages. Surely there are some languages in the world with interestingly different ways of expressing questions. How do you say "what is the meaning of life" in Sanskrit? * A treatment of questions' philosophical and scientific aspects. Maybe we could add mentions of the mathematical [http://www.claymath.org/millennium/ Millennium Prize problems], questions of social problems, and other enduring questions. [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600 Here's] a sort of interesting short list of scientific questions, though it seems rather too credulous of what may very well be junk science. A treatment of "To be or not to be," as User:Pfortuny suggested, would also be very good. I intend to add these sometime. * Whatever happened to List of famous questions? I assume it probably got filled up with irrelevant questions and was subsequently deleted. Still, there should be some sort of compilation of enduring questions.
User:Mr. Billion 19:56, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:A | B | C | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | X | Y | Z |
Question
A question is any of several kinds of linguistic expressions normally used by a questioner to request the presentation of information back to the questioner, in the form of an answer, by the audience. Alternatively, one may say that the question ''is'' the request itself, and the interrogative Sentence (linguistics) merely expresses it, but we will not use this sense. Questions thus resemble other requesting expressions as well as commands in normally being used to elicit a response. Indeed some expressions, such as "Would you pass the butter?", have the grammatical form of questions but function as requests for action, not for answers; these will be treated under request rather than here. Questions have a number of secondary uses: They may be used ("Socratically") to guide the questioner along an avenue of research. A rhetorical question is asked in order to make a point, and does not expect an answer (often the answer is implied or obvious). Presuppositional questions, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass the audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm. Questions can also be titles of works of art and literature (e.g. Leo Tolstoy's short story ''How Much Land Does a Man Need?'' and the movie ''What About Bob?''). ==Grammar== In grammar, most languages distinguish interrogative sentences that put questions from declarative sentences that state propositions by syntax. Some devices used by languages for marking questions include: *A different tonal pattern (often a raised tone near the end of the sentence) *A marked word order different from the usual word order in statements (see wh-movement) *An interrogative mood or some other verb inflection such as the subjunctive mood *A grammatical particle (cf Japanese language ''ka'', Mandarin Chinese language ''ma'') Combinations of any of the above are possible, as well as alternative patterns for different types of questions. For example, English employs the syntactic approach (word order change) for common questions, but resorts to raising the tone and leaving the word order as it is for focused (emphatic) questions such as "You did ''what''?". Spanish language changes the word order only when interrogative pronouns are involved (not in yes-no questions). In languages written in the Latin alphabet, the question mark (or, in the case of Spanish language, a pair of them) identifies questions orthographically. ==Questions and answers== The simplest questions implicitly or explicitly request information from a certain range (finite or infinite) of alternatives. When information purporting to be that requested is presented back to the questioner, the question is said to be ''answered''. The information thus presented is called an ''answer''. Answers may be ''right'' or ''wrong''. They are wrong if they present false information. If they present information from outside the proferred alternatives, they may be called wrong or simply inappropriate or irrelevant. This depends on the context, as do several other possibilities: Sometimes "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, sometimes even a right answer. The same is true of "None of the above" and "There is no answer." An answer is the, or a, right answer, if it presents true information which falls within the determined range of alternatives. Questions of this simplest sort usually begin with ''Who'', ''what'', ''which'', ''where'', ''when'', ''does''/''do'', ''is''/''are''. Other questions do not so easily fit this mold. For example, questions beginning "Why" and "How" often request any information at all that will alleviate certain confusion in a person who wants to ask that question. Here the manner in which the information is presented might be more important than which information is presented; the questioner may even already know all of the information contained in the right answer, and merely needs it to be expressed in a more useful form. Ultimately, the interregotive pronouns (those beginning ''wh...'' in addition to the word ''how''), derive from the Indo European root Xwa, which in germanic languages softened to ''hwa'', and in latin and romance languages (e.g. spanish) hardened to ''que''. In English, a typographical error in copying by a series of monks is responsible for the transposition of the ''h'' and ''w'', although Received Pronunciation still preserves the original sound (i.e. ''hw...'' rather than ''wh...''). ''Who'' (and its dative - ''whom'', genitive - ''whose'', instrumental case - ''why'', neuter - ''what'', and neuter dative - ''where'') derive from ''hwa'' directly (and its other cases - ''hwaem'', ''hwaes'', ''hwi'', ''hwaet'', and ''hwaer''). ''Which'' is a compound - ''hwa'' and ''(ge)lik'', meaning ''what like''. ==Learning== Questions are used from the most elementary stage of learning to original research. In the scientific method, a question often forms the basis of the investigation and can be considered a transition between the observation and hypothesis stages. Students of all ages use questions in their learning of topics, and the skill of having learners creating "investigatable" questions is a central part of inquiry education. The Socratic method of questioning student responses may be used by a teacher to lead the student towards the truth without direct instruction, and also helps students to form logical conclusions. ===See also=== ''The Logic of Questions and Answers'' (1976), by Nuel D. Belnap and Thomas B. Steele.
Question
CSB Articles Is there any point in keeping this page? --User:Woggly 13:11, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) Yes, see my justification of the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page. When I wrote this it was intended to be unstubbed by people with more background in philosophy than me. There are many more types of questions. I do agree that recent edits with links to List of famous questions have not done the page any good. User:Jfdwolff 15:10, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Discussion from VfD (consensus to keep) == Dic defn moved here from speedy deletions - this is not a vote. User:Theresa knott 13:48, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. There's lost of philosophy surrounding "questions". I do favour a revert to my original; the link to list of famous questions doesn't do it any good. User:Jfdwolff 15:01, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. Agree with Jfdwolff. User:Warofdreams 15:32, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Change my vote to Keep, due to added content.--User:Woggly 09:18, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Delete. Seems more like a dictionary definition. User:Sander123 15:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * I do not think a page which may include a good study on ''to be or not to be, that is the question,'' ought to be deleted. Keep and let's hope someone will improve it. User:Pfortuny 15:59, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Delete - there's nothing there. If anybody decides they want to do a philosophical treatment of questions, they can make a new one. -- User:Cyrius 20:22, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC) * Keep and list on cleanup. Good topic, some good material and some mistakes, already more than a stub. User:Andrewa 23:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) * Keep. Grammar good missing tonal indicatorquestion Could cover more topics e.g. learning & teaching with questions, children. -- User:Zigger 20:42, 2004 Mar 28 (UTC) * Keep. An important concept in research, as well as education. I've put in a little about them. --User:Zandperl 04:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) == A few things I'd like to see == * Information on questions and their grammatical structure in other languages. Surely there are some languages in the world with interestingly different ways of expressing questions. How do you say "what is the meaning of life" in Sanskrit? * A treatment of questions' philosophical and scientific aspects. Maybe we could add mentions of the mathematical [http://www.claymath.org/millennium/ Millennium Prize problems], questions of social problems, and other enduring questions. [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600 Here's] a sort of interesting short list of scientific questions, though it seems rather too credulous of what may very well be junk science. A treatment of "To be or not to be," as User:Pfortuny suggested, would also be very good. I intend to add these sometime. * Whatever happened to List of famous questions? I assume it probably got filled up with irrelevant questions and was subsequently deleted. Still, there should be some sort of compilation of enduring questions.
User:Mr. Billion 19:56, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:A | B | C | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | X | Y | Z |
These materials are based on Wikipedia and licensed under the GNU FDL
YouTube.com videos better site than Turbo Tax 2007
