2.13 A-not-A Questions — Epoché
What you will be able to do Ask a yes-or-no question by saying the predicate, the negative, and the predicate again. Choose the right negative for the middle, which is not the same one for every verb. Say what this construction adds that the question particle does not, and why the two are never used together. Answer either kind of question by returning one side of it, rather than with a fixed word for "yes". Prerequisites : 2.5, the question particle. This lesson gives the other way of asking the same kind of question, so read it beside 2.5 Grammar , and keep 2.4 Grammar within reach for the verb of having, which behaves differently here. Mandarin has two ways of asking a question that expects yes or no. Lesson 2.5 gave the first: put the particle at the end and change nothing else. The second is to say the predicate twice with the negative in the middle, which comes out as "you are not are a doctor" if you translate it word for word, and which is the ordinary spoken form of the question in a great many situations. It is known as the A-not-A question, because that is its shape: a thing, the negative, the same thing again. The listener is handed the two possibilities and picks one. Nothing about it is difficult once you have seen a few, and it repays the effort, because it is also how Mandarin says "whether", as the section on embedded questions will show. The pattern Take the verb for linking two nouns from lesson 2.2, say it, negate it, say it again. 你是不是医生？ [1] is "are you a doctor?" and 他是不是医生？ [2] is "is he a doctor?". As always, nothing changes for person, and nothing moves: the subject is still first and the noun is still last. The only new material is in the middle. The negative in the middle is the plain one, and in speech it is said quickly and without stress, so the three syllables run together. Do not pause around it. The verb for having takes its own negative, the one lesson 2.4 gave it, and so the middle of the question changes with it. That is the single most useful form in this lesson, because it asks about possession and existence at once. Chinese English 你有没有工作？ [3] Do you have a job? 你有没有手机？ [4] Have you got a mobile phone? 家里有没有人？ [5] Is there anybody in the house? The third row is the existential frame of lesson 2.4 turned into a question, with the place first and the localiser doing its work. Notice that the English translations are three different shapes, "do you have", "have you got" and "is there", while the Mandarin is one shape three times. The other predicates in this lesson behave like the first pair. An auxiliary from the last lesson takes the construction happily, and so does an adjective. Chinese English 你想不想一起去？ [6] Do you want to come along? 他会不会写这个字？ [7] Can he write this character? 昨天晚上冷不冷？ [8] Was it cold last night? The last row is worth a second look. In a plain statement an adjective needs the little adverb of lesson 2.3 in front of it, and without that adverb the sentence sounds unfinished. In this question the adverb is gone, and it has to be: the two halves of the question are the bare adjective and its negation, with nothing between them but the negative. When you build one of these, strip the adverb out. Two-syllable predicates When the predicate has two syllables, the first copy can be shortened to its first syllable alone, and usually is. The verb for liking is two syllables; the question repeats only the first of them before the negative and then gives the whole word. 他问我喜不喜欢数学。 [9] is "he asked me whether I liked maths", and the shape of the question inside it is first syllable, negative, whole word. Saying the whole word twice is also correct and a little heavier. Both are used; the short form is commoner in speech, and it is the one to imitate. Nothing else about the construction changes. Tags at the end of a statement Two of these questions have hardened into tags that attach to a finished statement and ask for agreement. One is built on the adjective for good and asks the listener to agree to a request or a suggestion: 不要说话，好不好？ [10] is "stop talking, will you?", with the prohibition from lesson 2.12 in front of the tag. The other is built on the word for correct and checks a fact: 今天星期三，对不对？ [11] is "it's Wednesday today, right?". These two are worth memorising as units, because they are common and because English does the same job with a machine that has to be assembled fresh every time. "Today is Wednesday, isn't it?" requires you to find the verb of the statement, negate it, and match its person and tense. Mandarin adds a short fixed tag, often one of these two, and is done. The difference from the particle question Both constructions ask the same thing. 你是医生吗？ [12] and the first numbered sentence of this lesson, 你是不是医生？ [1] , both mean "are you a doctor?", and in most conversations either would pass without comment. The difference is one of weight rather than of meaning. The particle question is the shorter and the more neutral; it is what you use when you have no particular expectation and simply want the information. The A-not-A question spells out both alternatives, so it presses a little harder for a definite answer, and it is the form that sounds more direct and more colloquial. They are never combined. A question is marked once, so a sentence that already says the predicate twice does not also take the particle. Putting both in is an easy error to make, and it is the same error as asking a question with a question word and the particle together, which lesson 2.6 warned about. Answering with one side Neither construction needs a word for "yes", because Mandarin has no single word that answers every question. 对 "right" and 是的 (the verb softened with a particle) are often used as a general yes, but the ordinary answer is to return the half of the question that is true, and nothing else is needed. To "are you a doctor?" the answers are 是的。 [13] "I am" and 不是。 [14] "I'm not". The particle on the first of those softens it into a fu