A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information is provided with an answer. The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ... In the common law, an answer is the first pleading by a defendant, usually filed and served upon the plaintiff within a certain strict time limit after a civil complaint or criminal information or indictment has been served upon the defendant. ...

Questions are normally put or asked using interrogative sentences. But they can also be put by imperative sentences, which normally express commands: "Tell me what 2 + 2 is"; conversely, some expressions, such as "Would you pass the butter?", have the grammatical form of questions but function as requests for action, not for answers. Although this interpretation may be a little more focused such a phrase as this, could theoretically, also be viewed not merely as a request, but as an observation of the other person's desire to comply with the request given. In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ...

Varieties of questions

Questions have a number of uses. 'Raising a question' may guide the questioner along an avenue of research (see Socratic method). A rhetorical question is asked in order to make a point, and does not expect an answer (often the answer is implied or obvious). Pre-suppositional questions, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass an 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?). This article is about the concept. ... Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate) is a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. ... A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than to receive an answer. ... Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(Lyof, Lyoff) (September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 – November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910) (Russian: , IPA:  ), commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer – novelist, essayist, dramatist and philosopher – as well as pacifist Christian anarchist and educational reformer. ... How Much Land Does a Man Need? is an 1886 short story by Leo Tolstoy about a man who, in his lust for land, forfeits everything, including his own life. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... For the Dresden Files episode, see What About Bob? (Dresden). ...

In research projects

1. Descriptive question, used primarily to describe the existence of some thing or process.
2. Relational question, designed to look at the relationships between two or more variables.
3. Causal question, designed to determine whether one or more variables causes or affects one or more outcome variables.^[1]

Research is often described as an active, diligent, and systematic process of inquiry aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising facts. ...

In surveys (there are a few types of questions)

1. Dichotomous questions, usually these questions require yes/no answers or require a person to answer by choosing an option(s) from a multiple choice of possible answers.
2. Nominal questions, these types of questions are designed to inquire about a level of quantitative measure. Usually these questions form correlations between a number and a concept. For example:

Occupational Class: 1= Moderate 2= Severe 3= etc. ^[2]

1. Qualifying questions (a.k.a. filter questions, or contingency questions. These types of questions are designed to determine if the individual answering the question needs to continue on to answer subsequential questions.

Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Categories of questions)

• Knowledge

  who, what, when, where, how..? Describe...?

• Comprehension

  retell...

• Application

  How is...an example of...?; how is...related to...?; why is...significant?

• Analysis

  What are the parts or features of...? Classify...according to...;

• Synthesis

  what would you infer from...? What ideas can you add to...? How would you design a new..? What would happen if you combined...? What solutions would you suggest for...?

• Evaluation

  do you agree that...? What do you think about?...What is the most important..? Place the following in order of priority...? How would you decide about...? What criteria would you use to assess...? ^[3]

In syntax

• Yes/no-questions
  • Yes/no questions can be answered with a yes or no, hence the name.
• Wh-questions
  • Wh-questions use interrogative words to request information. In some languages, wh-movement may be involved. They cannot be answered with a yes or no.
• Tag questions
  • Tag questions are a grammatical structure in which a declarative statement or an imperative is turned into a question by adding an interrogative fragment (the "tag"). Tag questions can be answered with a yes or no.

In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used to introduce an interrogative clause. ... Wh-movement or wh-fronting is a syntactic phenomenon whereby interrogative words (sometimes called wh-words) appear at the beginning of an interrogative sentence. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Grammar

In grammar, most languages distinguish interrogative sentences, which put questions from declarative sentences that state propositions, by syntax. Some devices used by languages for marking questions include: For the rules of English grammar, see English grammar and Disputes in English grammar. ... A declaration is a form of statement, which expresses (or declares) some idea; declarations attempt to argue that something is true. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ...

• 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 ka, Mandarin Chinese ma)
• (In written language) distinctive punctuation, such as the question mark

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) and the tonal pattern for common questions, but resorts to just raising the tone while leaving the word order as it is for focused (emphatic) questions such as "You did what?". Spanish changes the word order only when interrogative pronouns are involved (not in yes-no questions). In Chinese, the word order remains the same for questions as for statements, with the particle added to create a wh-interrogative in situ. In linguistic typology, word order is the order in which words appear in sentences. ... Wh-movement or wh-fronting is a syntactic phenomenon whereby interrogative words (sometimes called wh-words) appear at the beginning of an interrogative sentence. ... In linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood is a grammatical mood used for asking questions. ... Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ... In grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a verb mood that exists in many languages. ... In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ... The question mark(?) (also known as an interrogation point, query,[1] or eroteme) is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence. ... An interrogative pronoun (also known simply as an interrogative) is a pronoun used in asking questions. ... An interrogative word (also known simply as an interrogative) is a function word used for the item questioned in a question. ... In situ is a Latin phrase meaning in the place. ...

In languages written in the Latin alphabet or Cyrillic alphabet, a question mark at the end of the sentence identifies questions orthographically. In Spanish, an additional mark is placed at the beginning (e.g. ¿Cómo está usted?). The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... The question mark(?) (also known as an interrogation point, query,[1] or eroteme) is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence. ...

"Negative questions," are interrogative sentences which contain negation in their phrasing, such as "Shouldn't you be working?" These can have different ways of expressing affirmation and denial from the standard form of question, and they can be confusing, since it is sometimes unclear whether the answer should be the opposite of the answer to the non-negated question. For example, if one does not have a passport, both "Do you have a passport?" "Don't you have a passport?" are properly answered with "No", despite apparently asking opposite questions. The Japanese language avoids this ambiguity. Answering "No" to this question in Japanese would mean, "I do have a passport".

Some languages have different particles (for example the French "si" and the German "doch") to answer negative questions in an affirmative way.

There are three types of sentences in the English language where the predicate can come before the subject. An interrogative sentence is one such one. 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. ...

Example: Did you pick the car up from the shop?

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 proffered 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. In jurisprudence and law, a right is the legal or moral entitlement to do or refrain from doing something or to obtain or refrain from obtaining an action, thing or recognition in civil society. ... A wrong or being wrong is a concept in law, ethics, and science. ... False is the antonym of the adjective true. ... When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they might claim that it is the truth. ...

Other questions do not so easily fit this mould. 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 interrogative pronouns (those beginning wh in addition to the word how), derive from the Proto-Indo-European root k^wo- or k^wi, the former of which was reflected in Proto-Germanic as x^wa- or h^wa-.^{[citation needed]} The Proto-Indo-European root directly originated the Latin and Romance form qu- in words such as Latin qualis ("which") and quando ("when"). In English, the gradual change of voiceless stops into voiceless fricatives (phase 1 of Grimm's law) during the development of Germanic languages is responsible for "wh-" of interrogatives. Although some varieties of Received Pronunciation and various Scottish dialects still preserve the original sound (i.e. [hw] rather than [w]), the majority only preserve the [w]. The words who, whom, whose, what and why, can all be considered to come from a single Old English word hwā, reflecting its masculine and feminine nominative (hwā), dative(hwām), genitive(hwæs), neuter nominative(hwæt), and instrumental of all genders (hwȳ, later hwī) respectively. Other interrogative words, such as which, how, where, as well as the now archaic whither derive either from compounds (which coming from a compound of hwā[what, who] and lic[like]), or other words from the same root (how deriving from hū). The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Grimms law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic (PGmc, the common ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family) in the 1st millennium BC. It establishes... The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Scottish English is usually taken to mean the standard form of the English language used in Scotland, often termed Scottish Standard English. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon[1], Old English: ) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ...

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. Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ... Inquiry education (sometimes known as the inquiry method) is a student-centered method of education focused on asking questions. ... Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate) is a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. ...

A widespread and accepted use of questions in an educational context is the assessment of students' knowledge through exams. In education, certification, counselling, and many other fields, a test or exam (short for examination) is a tool or technique intended to measure students expression of knowledge, skills and/or abilities. ...

Philosophical Questions

The philosophical questions are conceptual, not factual questions. There are questions that are not fully answered by any other. Philosophy deals with questions that arise when people reflect on their lives and their world. Some philosophical questions are practical: for example, 'Is euthanasia justifiable?', 'Does the state have the right to censor pornography or restrict tobacco advertising?', 'To what extent are Mäori and Päkehä today responsible for decisions made by their ancestors?'. Other philosophical questions are more theoretical, although they often arise through thinking about practical issues. The questions just listed, for example, may prompt more general philosophical questions about the circumstances under which it may be morally justifiable to take a life, or about the extent to which the state may restrict the liberty of the individual. Some fascinating, 'classic', questions of Philosophy are speculative and theoretical and concern the nature of knowledge, reality and human existence: for example, 'What, if anything, can be known with certainty?', 'Is the mind essentially non-physical?', 'Are values absolute or relative?', 'Does the universe need explanation in terms of a Supreme Intelligence?', 'What, if anything, is the meaning or purpose of human existence?'Finally, the philosophical questions are typically about conceptual issues; they are often questions about our concepts and the relation between our concepts and the world they represent.

See also

• Inquiry
• Proposition
• Doubt
• Interrogate
• Problem
• Rhetorical question

Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... This article is about the word proposition as it is used in logic, philosophy, and linguistics. ... This article is about the mental state. ... Interrogation is the professional police and military technique of interviewing people, often without their consent, in order to obtain information regarding crimes or military operations. ... Look up Problem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than to receive an answer. ...

References

• C. L. Hamblin, "Questions", in: Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Georg Stahl, "Un développement de la logique des questions", in: Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger 88 (1963), 293-301.
• Fieser, James , Lillegard, Norman (eds), Philosophical questions : readings and interactive guides, 2005.
• Muratta Bunsen, Eduardo, "Lo erotico en la pregunta", in: Aletheia 5 (1999), 65-74.
• Smith, Joseph Wayne, Essays on ultimate questions: critical discussions of the limits of contemporary philosophical inquiry, Aldershot: Avebury, 1988.
• Berti, Enrico, Soggetti di responsabilita: questioni di filosofia pratica, Reggio Emilia, 1993.