4.3. MORE PARTICLES 185
a reason, paired with a question that would otherwise warrant a yes/no
answer:
A:
B:
A: ”Is it okay this way?”
B: ”Yes.”
A:
B:
A: ”Is it okay this way?”
B: ”Yes, (we)’ll do the rest tomorrow.”
We see here that a normal - question is a simple ”is it?” yes/no
question, but that using not only asks for a yes/no answer but also
the motivation for the yes/no answer (the mixed politeness form between
the two lines used here may indicate asubordinatetalking to their boss).
This kind of asking for an implicit reason to the yes/no answer is
very useful in for instance situations like:
Excuse me, are there any public phones near here?
If you ask this question with , you may just receive a
yes/no answer, but using (or a form thereof), you indicate you
also want to know what motivates the yes/no answer, so in case the answer
is yes, you’ll hear where, and if you hear no, you’ll probably be told where
you might find them instead.
One thing to be careful of is to not start over-using it, and ending
up using it in situations in which it doesn’t actually make any sense such
as in the following example:
A:
B:
A: ”What will you have?”
B: ”As I want ice cream.”
In this case, using is plain and simply wrong. Rather than
implying that you want ice cream, , the addition of
suddenly forces the listener to interpet this phrase as a reason for some-
thing, leading to what is basically a nonsense phrase, so be careful: only
use or a variant when there is something to reason about, or you
need more information than a simple yes/no answer to a question.