Echo answer

In linguistics, an echo answer or echo response is a way of answering a polar question without using words for yes and no. The verb used in the question is simply echoed in the answer, negated if the answer has a negative truth-value.[1] For examples:

Finnish

The Finnish language is one language that employs echo answers in response to yes-no questions. It does not answer them with either adverbs or interjections. So the answer to "Tuletteko kaupungista?" ("Are you coming from town?") is the verb form itself, "Tulemme." ("We are coming."). Negatively-phrased questions are answered similarly. Negative answers use the negative verb en in coordination with the infinitive. The negative answer to "Tunnetteko herra Lehdon?" ("Do you know Mr Lehto?") is "En tunne" ("I don't know.") or simply "En" ("I don't.").[2][3]

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages also primarily employ echo answers. Irish and Scottish Gaelic lack the words "yes" and "no" altogether. In Welsh, the words for "yes" and "no" ("ie" and "nage") are restricted to specialized circumstances. Like Finnish, the main way in these languages to state yes or no, in answer to yes-no questions, is to echo the verb of the question. In Irish, the question "An dtiocfaidh tú?" ("Will you come?") will be answered with "Tiocfaidh" ("[I] will come") or "Ní thiocfaidh" ("[I] will not come"). (In Hiberno-English, it is the auxiliary that is echoed: the English question "Will you come?" is often answered in Ireland with "I will" instead of "Yes", or "I will not" instead of "no".)

Similarly, in Welsh, the answers to "Ydy Fred yn dod?" ("Is Fred coming?") are either "Ydy" ("[He] is") or "Nag ydy" ("[He] is not"). In general, the negative answer is the positive answer combined with "nag". As in Finnish, this avoids the issue of what an unadorned "yes" means in response to a negative question. Whilst a "yes" response to the question "You don't beat your wife?" is ambiguous in English, the Welsh response "nag ydw" has no ambiguity.[3][4][5][6]

Latin

Latin, which has no single words for "yes" and "no", also employs echo answers.[7][8][9] For example:[10]

Portuguese

The Portuguese language is the only major Romance language to use echo answers often, even if it has words for "yes" and "no" proper (sim and não respectively.). Portuguese will most commonly answer a polar question in the affirmative by repeating the main verb.

For example, one would answer the question, "Tens fome?" ("Are you hungry?" or transliterated as "Do you have hunger?") by simply replying, "tenho" ("[I] have"). One could also add sim before or after the verb for the use of emphasis, or to contradict a negative question; producing "sim, tenho" or "tenho sim". In order to produce a negative answer to a polar question, the verb is repeated followed by não before or after it. Thus, a negative answer to our above question would be: "Não tenho," "Tenho não," or "Não tenho fome." For emphasis, one could even say, "Não tenho, não."

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese often employs echo answers.[11]:pp.558-563 Often yes-no questions in Mandarin are expressed in the A-not-A form, and are answered with either A or not-A. For example:

In addition, often yes-no questions are formed by adding the particle ma ("yes or no?") to the end of a sentence, in which case the answer can be shì de ("is (so)") or bu shì ("not is (so)"), or duì ("right") or bu duì (not right"):

References

  1. ↑ Wendy G. Lehnert and Brian K. Stucky (1988). "Understanding answers to questions". In Michel Meyer. Questions and Questioning. New York: de Gruyter. pp. 224, 232. ISBN 3-11-010680-9.
  2. ↑ Leonard Bloomfield and Charles F. Hockett (1984). Language. University of Chicago Press. pp. 176–177. ISBN 978-0-226-06067-5.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cliff Goddard (2003). "Yes or no? The complex semantics of a simple question" (PDF). In Peter Collins and Mengistu Amberber. Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. p. 7.
  4. ↑ Gareth King (1996). "Yes/no answers". Basic Welsh. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-415-12096-8.
  5. ↑ Mark H Nodine (2003-06-14). "How to say "Yes" and "No"". A Welsh Course. Cardiff School of Computer Science, Cardiff University.
  6. ↑ Bob Morris Jones (1999). The Welsh Answering System. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-016450-3. — Jones' analysis of how to answer questions in the Welsh language, broken down into a typology of echo and non-echo responsives, polarity and truth-value responses, and numbers of forms
  7. ↑ Walter B. Gunnison (2008). Latin for the First Year. READ BOOKS. p. 300. ISBN 978-1-4437-1459-4.
  8. ↑ George J. Adler (1858). A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language; with Perpetual Exercises in Speaking and Writing. Boston: Sanborn, Carter, Bazin, & Co. p. 8.
  9. ↑ J. B. Calvert (1999-06-24). "Comparison of adjectives and adverbs, and saying yes or no". Latin For Mountain Men. Elizabeth R. Tuttle.
  10. ↑ Ronald B. Palma (2005). SAT Subject Test: Latin (REA). Research & Education Association. p. 296. ISBN 978-0-7386-0090-1.
  11. ↑ Li, Charles N., and Thompson, Sandra A., Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar, Univ. of California Press, 1981.