Negative statement - positive tag - negative answer

You didn’t know that before, did you? - No, I didn’t.

The answer, however, may be unexpected, as in: You didn’t know that before, did you ? - But I did.

The falling tone of the tag is also possible. It makes the whole sentence sound like a statement. The speaker actually knows the answer and can do without it.

There is one more sentence pattern with a tag question which is less frequently used.

Positive statement - positive tag

You knew about it before, did you?

Negative statement - negative tag

You didn’t know about it before, didn’t you?

This sentence pattern is used when the speaker comes to a conclusion concerning some event. Such sentences may begin with the conjunction so.

So you knew about it before, did you?

A sentence pattern with a tag question may serve as a response to the previous remark. Thus it forms a comment having some emotional attitude, such as surprise, anger, sarcasm.

They even put the car on the ship for you.

- They do, do they? Who takes it off again?

He brought these flowers, too. - He did, did he? - Yes.

Alternative questions

§ 11. An alternative question implies a choice between two or more alternative answers. Like a “yes-no” question, it opens with an operator, but the suggestion of choice expressed by the disjunctive conjunction or makes the “yes-no” answer impossible. The conjunction or links either two homogeneous parts of the sentence or two coordinate clauses. The part of the question before the conjunction is characterized by a rising tone, the part after the conjunction has a falling tone.

Will you go to the opera or to the concert to-night?

An alternative question may sometimes resemble a pronominal question beginning with a question word:

Which do you prefer, tea or coffee?

Where shall we go, to the cinema or to the football match?

Actually such structures fall into two parts, the first forms a pronominal question, the second a condensed alternative question.

Would you prefer tea or coffee?

Shall we go to the cinema or to the football match?

Sometimes the alternative contains only a negation:

Will they ever stop arguing or not?

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