A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§2.7 Echo questions 167

How can also be an adjective, functioning as predicative complement. Here it

permits a fairly small range of answers, typically indicating state of health or

evaluation (How are you? - Ve ry well; How was the concert? - Excellent).

There are also cases where the interrogative word is a dependent:

When what and which function as determiner in NP structure, the replacements

must be consistent with the head noun. So What video shall we get? and Which

video shall we get? need replacements referring to a video. (The difference

between what and which is that the latter implies selection from some definite

set; in the example given, which suggests prior mention of a number of videos,

with the question asking for a choice between them.)

How can function as degree modifier of adjectives, determinatives or adverbs,

and the replacement must have the right sort of meaning to fit the function: How

wide is it? - T wo inches (or Two inches wide); How many copies do you need?­

Fifteen; How fa st were they going? -About fifty miles an hour.

2.6 Information questions and direction questions

In all the questions considered so far, the answers have been statements.

We call these information questions. There's also a less frequent type of question,

direction questions, whose answers are directives. The questions in the [a] exam­

ples in [17] are closed (polar), those in the [b] ones open.

[ 17] INFORMATION QUESTION POSSIBLE ANSWER (STATEMENT)

a. Did you open the window? Ye s, I did.

b. What did you give her? I gave her a CD.

ii DIRECTION QUESTION POSSIBLE ANSWER (DIRECTIVE)

a. Shall I open the window? Ye s, please do.

b. What shall we give her? Let's give her a CD.

2.7 Echo questions

One distinctive type of (information) question is the echo question,
uttered in response to a preceding utterance which we call the stimulus:

[ 18] STIMULUS

A: She wrote to the minister.

11 A: He invited Arthur.

ECHO QUESTION

B: She wrote to the minister?

B: He invited who?

[closed (polar)]

[open]

Echo questions serve to check or clarify a stimulus that wasn't clearly perceived or

was surprising. They can be closed or open. Closed echo questions are usually ofthe

polar type.

A polar echo typically repeats the stimulus in full or in reduced form and has

sharply rising intonation; it's used to check whether I correctly heard what you

said (or meant to say).