English for Today by Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose (Dr GAB)
Tag Question
First things first, a tag question is a short question that is attached to a statement for clarification. The formation of tag questions is rule-governed, and the rules are given below.
1. Fundamentally, a statement in the positive form attracts a negative tag, while a negative declaration admits a positive tag. Besides, it bears affirming that a sentence is adjudged negative when it encapsulates negators such as ‘no’, ‘not’ and ‘never’. It must be mentioned that the auxiliary in a sentence should be used to form the tag.
She is singing, is she? (nonstandard).
She is singing, isn’t she? (standard)
She was never attentive, wasn’t she? (nonstandard).
She was never attentive, was she? (standard).
2. When there is no auxiliary verb in a sentence, do, does or did forms the tag. While ‘do’ is used in the present tense, alongside plural nouns or pronouns, ‘does’ is used in the present tense and deployed together with singular nouns or pronouns. By comparison, ‘did’ is applied in the past tense, regardless of if the noun or pronoun is singular or plural. These generate sentences like:
She sings every morning, doesn’t she? (standard).
We play football every day, don’t we? (standard).
We read the novel twice, didn’t we? (standard).
Tina always caters for the toddlers, doesn’t she? (standard).
GAB
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