Talk:Question/Archive 1

My Inquiry
I was specifically interested in the origins of interrogative forms in spoken and written language. I find no discussion of this here, the "Origins" section being mainly devoted to the individual acquisition of questioning in human development. If anyone can supply information drawn from linguistics or anthropology on when and how humans first became a question-asking species or added such forms to their written language I would be interested to read about it. Thank you. Redslider (talk) 16:19, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Purpose
Is there any point in keeping this page? --Woggly 13:11, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, see my justification of the VFD page. When I wrote this it was intended to be unstubbed by people with more background in philosophy than me. There are many more types of questions. I do agree that recent edits with links to List of famous questions have not done the page any good. Jfdwolff 15:10, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Discussion from VfD (consensus to keep)
Dic defn moved here from speedy deletions - this is not a vote. theresa knott 13:48, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. There's lost of philosophy surrounding "questions". I do favour a revert to my original; the link to list of famous questions doesn't do it any good. Jfdwolff 15:01, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Agree with Jfdwolff. Warofdreams 15:32, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Change my vote to Keep, due to added content.--Woggly 09:18, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Seems more like a dictionary definition. Sander123 15:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I do not think a page which may include a good study on to be or not to be, that is the question, ought to be deleted. Keep and let's hope someone will improve it. Pfortuny 15:59, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - there's nothing there. If anybody decides they want to do a philosophical treatment of questions, they can make a new one. -- Cyrius 20:22, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep and list on cleanup. Good topic, some good material and some mistakes, already more than a stub. Andrewa 23:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Grammar good missing tonal indicator? Could cover more topics e.g. learning & teaching with questions, children. -- Zigger 20:42, 2004 Mar 28 (UTC)
 * Keep. An important concept in research, as well as education.  I've put in a little about them.  --zandperl 04:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A few things I'd like to see

 * Information on questions and their grammatical structure in other languages. Surely there are some languages in the world with interestingly different ways of expressing questions.  How do you say "what is the meaning of life" in Sanskrit?
 * A treatment of questions' philosophical and scientific aspects. Maybe we could add mentions of the mathematical Millennium Prize problems, questions of social problems, and other enduring questions.  Here's a sort of interesting short list of scientific questions, though it seems rather too credulous of what may very well be junk science.  A treatment of "To be or not to be," as Pfortuny suggested, would also be very good.  I intend to add these sometime.
 * Whatever happened to List of famous questions? I assume it probably got filled up with irrelevant questions and was subsequently deleted.  Still, there should be some sort of compilation of enduring questions.Mr. Billion 19:56, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Right... I added the word Interrogate to the See also list. Simply because the word 'Question' is listed in the glossary of Roget's 1979 Thesaurus with the subheadings of Doubt, Inquiry, and Interrogate. Contextual example: "I have the questioned/interrogated the suspect about his alleged involvement in the robbery."Drakonicon 18:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * How about a section on rhetorical questions? --Process 15:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Rhetorical questions are semantic, not syntactic. There's nothing inherently special about their structure. --Kjoonlee 19:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Famous Questions
The Historical Buddha, Guatama Siddharta, apparently asked 14 unanswerable questions to assist people in attaining enlightenment. I will try and find one from the Buddhist literature and Sanskrit translations. The 4-cornered truth asks four such questions, using philosophical thought to unwind the need for philosophical thought, usually as a philosophical conundrum about the state of reality.Drakonicon 17:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In response to Mr. Billion above, i thought i'd start up the list here. Maybe we should place famous ones here in the talk and place them all under review? Maybe the question needs to be referenced by who said it? Is it answerable? (If not answerable, then deserves to be here in my view). Does have moral, social, integrity, etc... As Mr. Billion pointed out, it could easily get out of hand. Maybe it should be limited to say 5 Questions:: simply to show examples of Good and Famous Questions. Maybe with these subheadings: A Philosophical Question, A Religious Question, A Scientific Question... etc. Pick a category -find a deep and enigmatic question? I'll start it off. I realise that the quotes i have offered need to be sourced far more accurately. I suppose these two quotes operate like Zen koans:
 * "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" - Bishop Berkeley, Philosopher, 17??
 * "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees, does it still make a noise?" - Bishop Berkeley, Philosopher, 17??

Request for request
Why does this article refer to the request article that merely redirects back here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.20.215.126 (talk • contribs) 10:40, 6 July 2006.

Cleanup needed.
 * I'm removing the 2 links to request in the lead paragraph. (request redirects to Question...). I'm also changing its category to Grammar, as it's all by itself in category:questions, and appears to have been for some time. Other cleanup is needed, for instance the "Grammar" sections ends by referring to three types of sentences, but then only mentions one of them. Also the first sentence is extremely long, as is the lead section overall. --Quiddity· (talk) 06:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Please find sources . ..
Will some expert who know about such things kindly source the following?
 * The programme broadcast on September 13, 2001, which was devoted to the political implications of the 9/11 attacks that had occurred two days before, featured many contributions from the audience taking the view that such attacks had been made inevitable by the course of United States foreign policy. When opinions were expressed that were critical of America, certain sections of the audience became carried away in agreement, and despite David Dimbleby's efforts, their contribution degenerated from debate into a prolonged and humiliating attack on America and Americans. Although the temporary breakdown of order is not unknown on Question Time, the event struck many as particularly insensitive given the recent nature of tragedy, leading to questions about the wisdom of screening a live edition at such a time. A member of the panel, Philip Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain, was reported in several publications as being "near tears" during the broadcast. The BBC received over 2,000 complaints about the edition and later apologised to viewers for causing offence, stating that the edition should have been recorded and edited.

Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 07:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Declarative question
Some English speakers give interrogative intonation to otherwise perfectly affirmative sentences. Can we please include this aspect in the article? I'm not aware of this trait in any other language, but I'd be interested to know.

For example (not a very good one): "Yesterday? I went to the shopping centre? I coulnd't believe it, the sales had started!" 205.228.73.11 15:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There's no question about it. (Hah!) See High rising terminal, also known as uptalk. You might want to read Valspeak and Valley girl as well. --Kjoonlee 18:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Indirect questions
"Indirect question" redirects here, but that term is not even mentioned. Perhaps I could ask, indirectly of course, if someone would care to write something about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.47.23 (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

pointer to divert new editors questions
Recommend putting a pointer hatnote to Questions as an aid to new editors looking to ask them rather than an article. LeeVJ (talk) 16:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. Thanks for the suggestion. Graham 87 08:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) LeeVJ (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello
One point of that link Kalaha-vivada Sutta Further Questions is, that some scholar translated the Kalaha-vivada Sutta with Further Questions. This is very funny and intelligent. Don't you think so. Also very funny, that somebody has put a saying -a sutta- of the Buddha almost on top of the wikisite, referring to questions and answers, named Pañha Sutta or Questions, Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu,. The same Thanissaro Bhikkhu translated the Kalaha-vivada sutta with Quarrels & Disputes, which -of course- in Buddhist way of answering do not occur.
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Question&diff=291388834&oldid=291380681]

I love that link and precisely on this site. Can I reinsert it?
 * Austerlitz

P.S. I remember Yeshe Tsogyal and her questions to Padmasambhava and: "Thanks to His Eminence Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who upholds the heart of Padmasambhava’s teachings, for kindly explaining any question I had and for his profound instructions illuminating the depth of the view presented in this book; and to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche for extensively teaching the Dharma over the years, including two seminars covering questions and answers between Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal. (Erik Pema Kunsang, Nagi Gompa, 1994) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.75.198.34 (talk) 17:25, 21 May 2009


 * Yes it's a good link, and the source text is enlightening. But it's not directly related to the subject of questions, as required by the external links guidelines. I can't think of any external link that would be appropriate in this article, given its nature, but relevant footnoted references are always welcome. Graham 87  01:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

(This link must be first.) :Austerlitz -- 83.236.19.11 (talk) 14:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 

What do you want to say? by "a single example isn't needed"?
 * Austerlitz -- 83.236.19.11 (talk) 13:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What I should have said is "no example is needed". This article should not contain standalone examples of questions, given without context. It can use a question as an example like "a common question uttered by children on long trips is 'Are we there yet?'" It would be helpful and encyclopedic to add more about types of questions or the uses of questions. I seem to be the only person watching this article, so if you want to seek a third opinion from another experienced Wikipedia editor, feel free. I mainly watch this article for vandalism, and I don't know much about the subject ... if that makes any sense! Graham 87  15:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Syntax for marking questions?
In the Grammar section: "Most languages use syntax to distinguish interrogative sentences (which put questions) from declarative sentences (which state propositions)."

This is a rather bold claim, does anyone have a source for it? I don't think we should assume that the majority of languages mark questions grammatically.

Also, the sentence is ambiguous right now. Does it mean that a majority of languages use syntax exclusively, or usually, to mark questions? Or does it just mean that the majority languages have syntactic mechanisms for marking questions, even if they don't necessarily use them much (i.e., maybe language speakers of language Y use intonation to mark questions 90% of the time, but they could play with word order if they really wanted to.

These things need to be cleared up. If they aren't cleared up soon, then I might just rephrase that whole thing and soften up the tone, since it doesn't have any source to back up what's there now. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 04:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, it's quite a bold claim. Even in English, a question can be signified by intonation and/or a punctuation mark for emphasis; compare: "he drove all the way from Miami to Yellowknife." and "He drove all the way from Miami to Yellowknife?" From the little I know of Italian, questions can also be signified by intonation and/or grammatical changes. Graham 87 09:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, I softened it up and mentioned that syntax and prosody are just two possible ways of doing it, without making any claims about which is more common or more universal (I ignored punctuation, but I consider the question mark to just be a written version of rising pitch, more or less). diff  No sources handy, but it's not like this article is at FA standard or anything. I'm not a typologist, so I don't know anything about how common syntactic and prosodic question mechanicms (or any others I haven't thought of...I suppose technically you could say that the second example in the section is morphological, not syntactic, but whatever...morpho-syntactic, I'll say...who knows if morphology even exists).  how common they are relative to one another, either within a single language or cross-linguistically. So, none of that stuff should be added without a source. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 13:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds good here. Graham 87 14:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Cute starting quote, but...
Shorter:

Rabbi 1: "Rabbi, why does a Rabbi answer a question with a question?" Rabbi 2: "Is there a better way?"

70.36.176.224 (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC) rabbi 3: "the nature of own enquiry. I also say that the person is important not a thing." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.255.26.75 (talk) 08:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Category:Questions

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am thinking about creating the Category:Questions. There are quite a few questions, such as rhetorical question, loaded question, or leading question, plus probably a few famous historical ones, to make the category viable. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Then it sounds like it should be called Category:Types of questions. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 21:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure that would be against MoS, as "Types of..." is a pretty pointless elaboration that could be applied to most of the categories we have. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 06:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * But the category you're describing is not a bunch of questions; the entries in it are not themselves questions. (Such a category would contain things like "to be or not to be?", "how much wood can a woodchuck chuck?", "how did the chicken cross the road", etc.) The elements of the category are types of questions. This is different than, for example, Category:Indochine albums, where all the entries are actually Indochine albums. And I don't see anything in MoS proscribing certain kinds of category titles. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 21:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You are right. There are two types of questions. If you want to create subcategories for them, go right ahead. For now, I will simply populate the generic question categories, and I'll look forward to see how it evolves (with subcats). I do however think that "types of questions" is not a good name, still, I checked and there is already a bunch of Category:Type of... so I won't oppose it. Presumably, the other category would be Category:Questions by subject? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I created Category:Question, and a bot will take care of recategorizing the pages. I chose this as a name because the one thing that seems to be linking together the things you categorized is that they are somehow related to questions (or, at the very least, have "question" in their title). Many of the pages are not specific questions (e.g., "yes-no question", "leading question"), may are not types of questions (e.g., "Fourteen unanswerable questions"), and many are not questions at all but are issues (e.g., "Jewish question", "woman question") or are just things that happen to have questions in them (e.g. "FAQ", "questionnaire"). Since the only thing holding all these together is that they are at least tangentially related to "Question" (at the very least, they have that word in them), none of the other names are really appropriate. Adopting the terms used at WP:Categorization, this would be a topic category rather than a set category. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:21, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, what is your rationale for singular rather than plural name? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As I just explained (and as is explained at the link I provided), "Questions" implies that the category is a list of questions, which it is not. "Question" implies that it is only a list of pages related in some way or another to the topic of "question", which is what it is. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Continued at Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 7. - Fayenatic (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Or-questions
The grammar section seems to be missing or-questions ("You you want fish or lamb?"). What are they formally called in English? In German, it's Wahlfrage or Alternativfrage. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

What would cause me to (not) have muscle in my urine Glendy67 (talk) 16:53, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Muscle tissue Glendy67 (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Types of philosophical questions missing from this article?
I see there was a discussion about creating a Category:Questions, and topics such as "loaded question," "leading question," "suggestive question," etc. would be included in this. However, it seems like that Category doesn't exist, and those notable types of philosophical questions aren't mentioned in this article. Has it been decided elsewhere that they shouldn't be mentioned or at least linked to in this main article about questions? "Begging the question" is another one...and I wouldn't be surprised if there's more. Error9900 (talk) 18:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Interrobang
Should we have reference here to the Interrobang? ?! That seems like an important manner of asking and punctuating a question and we could link to the interrobang page.Justify265 (talk) 17:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Erotetic Semantics
This article does not address the issues of erotetic semantics or erotetic logic. The logical types of questions should be described. The selection, completeness, and distinctness claims of a question need to be explored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.128.134 (talk) 08:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

A couple of grammatical points
In your introductory paragraph you say "one may use an imperative as in 'Tell me your name'. Frankly in grammatical terms that is nonsense. "Tell me your name" is an instruction, not a request. That's why it is an imperative and not a question! You make a similar mistake in the paragraph "By grammatical form" where you describe "I wonder where they are" as a question, It isn't, it's a statement. That is why it doesn't/shouldn't have a question mark at the end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DHPeteB (talk • contribs) 16:37, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

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Alignment of text should be changed
In my opinion, the alignment of the text at the beginning of the article (the quote from Buddha, Sutta Pitaka) should match the alignment of the text in the rest of the article to maintain consistency within the article and to also improve the presentation of the article. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2020 (UTC)