Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF QUESTIONS

433

Questions may be very direct and may threaten the dignity or face of the

addressee. To avoid such threats and to signal politeness, questions may be

prefaced with hedging expressions or other signals of politeness:

Can I ask you how old Fiona is?

Could you tell me where the nearest toilet is?

[student to university tutor]

I have a question. Does the word-count for the assignment include the

appendix?

The use of bare no as a reply to a yes-no question may be considered impolite or

inappropriate, and in most cases, no is accompanied by an expansion, explanation

or justification:

A: Would you like to live in London?

B: No, 

I don’t think I could stand all the noise and pollution

.

726 | Questions 

Cambridge Grammar of English

---

Where the respondent feels they cannot answer a yes-no question with a

straightforward affirmative or negative answer, the discourse marker well is often

used to signal a shift in the desired or anticipated question-answer sequence:

A: Do you live in Bristol?

B: Well, near Bristol.

(B feels he cannot answer with just yes or no, and shifts the anticipated sequence)

Oh

may be used to preface a reply, especially to indicate a range of emotive

reactions to the question, in the form of enthusiasm, surprise, shock, etc.:

A: Would you like a receipt?

B: Oh, yes, please! Got to have one of those.

A: Do you feel you’ve had a good treatment all of the times that you’ve been to

the doctor’s? 

B: Oh definitely. Yes. 

C: We think we’ve got wonderful doctors. 

A: I always go to a party on Hallowe’en you know, just in the village hall. 

B: Is it fancy dress and all that? 

A: Oh no! You’re joking aren’t you? 

Oh

may also be used to express a polite hesitation or a need for thinking time, or

to preface an undesired reply which may be face-threatening to the asker:

A: What do you pay for beef in the supermarket, a kilogram?

B: Oh I don’t know.

[in a restaurant; A is the waiter, B is a customer]

A: Are you ready to order the second course as well, or not?

B: Oh, can we do that later?

A: Yes, certainly.

Absolutely

, certainly and definitely frequently occur as interpersonally engaged

alternatives to bare yes or no (if followed by not) or together with yes or no:

A: Do you think that’s a good idea?

B: Absolutely.

A: Okay.

A: Shall I leave my coat here?

B: Yeah certainly. 

A: Is that all right?

B: Yeah. Yeah. 

A: Thanks.

A: You didn’t find them uninventive or dull?

B: 

No, definitely not.