usage of alternative question The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are In Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Planned maintenance scheduled April 17/18, 2019 at 00:00UTC (8:00pm US/Eastern)Negative in a question with various negative valence wordsQuestion beginning a sentenceAsking a question “to”, “from”, or “of”?What is the correct usage of “the question of …”Question using this structure “Since … is …, could we …?”What do you call a question where you don't expect a response?Should I answer this question without question mark?How to correctly punctuate a question with an alternative?How to explain additional words in the QASV formula for questions?Which tag question is right for this sentence?

Am I ethically obligated to go into work on an off day if the reason is sudden?

Why can't devices on different VLANs, but on the same subnet, communicate?

How does ice melt when immersed in water?

What information about me do stores get via my credit card?

Is above average number of years spent on PhD considered a red flag in future academia or industry positions?

Do working physicists consider Newtonian mechanics to be "falsified"?

Mortgage adviser recommends a longer term than necessary combined with overpayments

When did F become S in typeography, and why?

Segmentation fault output is suppressed when piping stdin into a function. Why?

How are presidential pardons supposed to be used?

How is simplicity better than precision and clarity in prose?

ELI5: Why do they say that Israel would have been the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon and why do they call it low cost?

Are my PIs rude or am I just being too sensitive?

Take groceries in checked luggage

What's the point in a preamp?

The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG 1397BC53640DB551

Can the DM override racial traits?

What are these Gizmos at Izaña Atmospheric Research Center in Spain?

Sort a list of pairs representing an acyclic, partial automorphism

Semisimplicity of the category of coherent sheaves?

Does Parliament need to approve the new Brexit delay to 31 October 2019?

How to delete random line from file using Unix command?

Simulating Exploding Dice

Cooking pasta in a water boiler



usage of alternative question



The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are In
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 17/18, 2019 at 00:00UTC (8:00pm US/Eastern)Negative in a question with various negative valence wordsQuestion beginning a sentenceAsking a question “to”, “from”, or “of”?What is the correct usage of “the question of …”Question using this structure “Since … is …, could we …?”What do you call a question where you don't expect a response?Should I answer this question without question mark?How to correctly punctuate a question with an alternative?How to explain additional words in the QASV formula for questions?Which tag question is right for this sentence?



.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;








0















Is it correct to say:
" Is the church at the end of the street catholic or it isn't? " If it is not then, please, explain why it is not and give the correct usage of alt. question in this example.










share|improve this question














bumped to the homepage by Community 59 mins ago


This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.















  • No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

    – Dan Bron
    Nov 14 '18 at 19:58






  • 1





    "Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

    – Centaurus
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:19







  • 1





    It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

    – John Lawler
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:24

















0















Is it correct to say:
" Is the church at the end of the street catholic or it isn't? " If it is not then, please, explain why it is not and give the correct usage of alt. question in this example.










share|improve this question














bumped to the homepage by Community 59 mins ago


This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.















  • No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

    – Dan Bron
    Nov 14 '18 at 19:58






  • 1





    "Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

    – Centaurus
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:19







  • 1





    It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

    – John Lawler
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:24













0












0








0








Is it correct to say:
" Is the church at the end of the street catholic or it isn't? " If it is not then, please, explain why it is not and give the correct usage of alt. question in this example.










share|improve this question














Is it correct to say:
" Is the church at the end of the street catholic or it isn't? " If it is not then, please, explain why it is not and give the correct usage of alt. question in this example.







questions






share|improve this question













share|improve this question











share|improve this question




share|improve this question










asked Nov 14 '18 at 19:57









Arthur HmayakyanArthur Hmayakyan

91




91





bumped to the homepage by Community 59 mins ago


This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.







bumped to the homepage by Community 59 mins ago


This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.














  • No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

    – Dan Bron
    Nov 14 '18 at 19:58






  • 1





    "Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

    – Centaurus
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:19







  • 1





    It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

    – John Lawler
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:24

















  • No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

    – Dan Bron
    Nov 14 '18 at 19:58






  • 1





    "Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

    – Centaurus
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:19







  • 1





    It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

    – John Lawler
    Nov 14 '18 at 20:24
















No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

– Dan Bron
Nov 14 '18 at 19:58





No, it is not grammatical. But to get more detailed answers to this A, especially the second part focused on more natural formulations, it should be asked on our sister site, English Language Learners.

– Dan Bron
Nov 14 '18 at 19:58




1




1





"Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

– Centaurus
Nov 14 '18 at 20:19






"Is the church at the end of the street a Catholic church?" sounds ok.

– Centaurus
Nov 14 '18 at 20:19





1




1





It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

– John Lawler
Nov 14 '18 at 20:24





It's not correct because both clauses should be questions in form. The word order in the first clause is Is the church ...?, so it should be or isn't it? in the second.

– John Lawler
Nov 14 '18 at 20:24










1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















0














We generally use a positive question and "or" followed by the opposite negative question in order to express impatience, anger or exasperation, e.g. at lack of clarity, or strong need to know, for example "Are you coming or aren't you?" (implication: I want to know now whether you are coming, and you should already have made this clear). "Is that coin gold, or isn't it?" (It is not clear whether the coin is made of gold, and I strongly wish to know). This form is not used for routine questions if no anger or urgency is being suggested. The full form of the negative question is [verb to be] [pronoun] not - is it not? Are they not? Will he not?, etc. The abbreviated form uses the shortened form of negative 'to be' forms - isn't he? Won't you? Didn't I?



Thus: "Did I tell you to clean your room, or did I not/didn't I?".



You would ask this question: "Is the church at the end of the street Catholic or is it not/isn't it?" to express frustration at not knowing the answer, and at not having been given the information already. It is hard to think of a situation in which this particular question would be asked in this way, (I need to confess right now!) and I imagine it is simply an example made up to illustrate the information being sought.



Negative questions






share|improve this answer























    Your Answer








    StackExchange.ready(function()
    var channelOptions =
    tags: "".split(" "),
    id: "97"
    ;
    initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

    StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
    // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
    if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
    StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
    createEditor();
    );

    else
    createEditor();

    );

    function createEditor()
    StackExchange.prepareEditor(
    heartbeatType: 'answer',
    autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
    convertImagesToLinks: false,
    noModals: true,
    showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
    reputationToPostImages: null,
    bindNavPrevention: true,
    postfix: "",
    imageUploader:
    brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
    contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
    allowUrls: true
    ,
    noCode: true, onDemand: true,
    discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
    ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
    );



    );













    draft saved

    draft discarded


















    StackExchange.ready(
    function ()
    StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fenglish.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f472986%2fusage-of-alternative-question%23new-answer', 'question_page');

    );

    Post as a guest















    Required, but never shown

























    1 Answer
    1






    active

    oldest

    votes








    1 Answer
    1






    active

    oldest

    votes









    active

    oldest

    votes






    active

    oldest

    votes









    0














    We generally use a positive question and "or" followed by the opposite negative question in order to express impatience, anger or exasperation, e.g. at lack of clarity, or strong need to know, for example "Are you coming or aren't you?" (implication: I want to know now whether you are coming, and you should already have made this clear). "Is that coin gold, or isn't it?" (It is not clear whether the coin is made of gold, and I strongly wish to know). This form is not used for routine questions if no anger or urgency is being suggested. The full form of the negative question is [verb to be] [pronoun] not - is it not? Are they not? Will he not?, etc. The abbreviated form uses the shortened form of negative 'to be' forms - isn't he? Won't you? Didn't I?



    Thus: "Did I tell you to clean your room, or did I not/didn't I?".



    You would ask this question: "Is the church at the end of the street Catholic or is it not/isn't it?" to express frustration at not knowing the answer, and at not having been given the information already. It is hard to think of a situation in which this particular question would be asked in this way, (I need to confess right now!) and I imagine it is simply an example made up to illustrate the information being sought.



    Negative questions






    share|improve this answer



























      0














      We generally use a positive question and "or" followed by the opposite negative question in order to express impatience, anger or exasperation, e.g. at lack of clarity, or strong need to know, for example "Are you coming or aren't you?" (implication: I want to know now whether you are coming, and you should already have made this clear). "Is that coin gold, or isn't it?" (It is not clear whether the coin is made of gold, and I strongly wish to know). This form is not used for routine questions if no anger or urgency is being suggested. The full form of the negative question is [verb to be] [pronoun] not - is it not? Are they not? Will he not?, etc. The abbreviated form uses the shortened form of negative 'to be' forms - isn't he? Won't you? Didn't I?



      Thus: "Did I tell you to clean your room, or did I not/didn't I?".



      You would ask this question: "Is the church at the end of the street Catholic or is it not/isn't it?" to express frustration at not knowing the answer, and at not having been given the information already. It is hard to think of a situation in which this particular question would be asked in this way, (I need to confess right now!) and I imagine it is simply an example made up to illustrate the information being sought.



      Negative questions






      share|improve this answer

























        0












        0








        0







        We generally use a positive question and "or" followed by the opposite negative question in order to express impatience, anger or exasperation, e.g. at lack of clarity, or strong need to know, for example "Are you coming or aren't you?" (implication: I want to know now whether you are coming, and you should already have made this clear). "Is that coin gold, or isn't it?" (It is not clear whether the coin is made of gold, and I strongly wish to know). This form is not used for routine questions if no anger or urgency is being suggested. The full form of the negative question is [verb to be] [pronoun] not - is it not? Are they not? Will he not?, etc. The abbreviated form uses the shortened form of negative 'to be' forms - isn't he? Won't you? Didn't I?



        Thus: "Did I tell you to clean your room, or did I not/didn't I?".



        You would ask this question: "Is the church at the end of the street Catholic or is it not/isn't it?" to express frustration at not knowing the answer, and at not having been given the information already. It is hard to think of a situation in which this particular question would be asked in this way, (I need to confess right now!) and I imagine it is simply an example made up to illustrate the information being sought.



        Negative questions






        share|improve this answer













        We generally use a positive question and "or" followed by the opposite negative question in order to express impatience, anger or exasperation, e.g. at lack of clarity, or strong need to know, for example "Are you coming or aren't you?" (implication: I want to know now whether you are coming, and you should already have made this clear). "Is that coin gold, or isn't it?" (It is not clear whether the coin is made of gold, and I strongly wish to know). This form is not used for routine questions if no anger or urgency is being suggested. The full form of the negative question is [verb to be] [pronoun] not - is it not? Are they not? Will he not?, etc. The abbreviated form uses the shortened form of negative 'to be' forms - isn't he? Won't you? Didn't I?



        Thus: "Did I tell you to clean your room, or did I not/didn't I?".



        You would ask this question: "Is the church at the end of the street Catholic or is it not/isn't it?" to express frustration at not knowing the answer, and at not having been given the information already. It is hard to think of a situation in which this particular question would be asked in this way, (I need to confess right now!) and I imagine it is simply an example made up to illustrate the information being sought.



        Negative questions







        share|improve this answer












        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer










        answered Nov 14 '18 at 21:04









        Michael HarveyMichael Harvey

        6,82011120




        6,82011120



























            draft saved

            draft discarded
















































            Thanks for contributing an answer to English Language & Usage Stack Exchange!


            • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

            But avoid


            • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

            • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.

            To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




            draft saved


            draft discarded














            StackExchange.ready(
            function ()
            StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fenglish.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f472986%2fusage-of-alternative-question%23new-answer', 'question_page');

            );

            Post as a guest















            Required, but never shown





















































            Required, but never shown














            Required, but never shown












            Required, but never shown







            Required, but never shown

































            Required, but never shown














            Required, but never shown












            Required, but never shown







            Required, but never shown







            Popular posts from this blog

            The Calvary Singular or Plural The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are InAre collective nouns always plural, or are certain ones singular?Is “audience” singular or plural?“Wasn't” vs. “weren't” in a vernacular sentence“My last couple of years” — singular or plural?Is 'rest' singular or plural?Is “all but one” singular or plural?Whether to use the singular or plural form of basis?Singular and Plural for numbersIs there a plural form of teeth?performance: plural vs singular?singular or plural nouns?Singular and Plural

            How does one intimidate enemies without having the capacity for violence?Ideas for how aliens would approach this fight?How to convey the scale of my humanoid without science or units?How does the “space drive” conserve momentum?Planet Vanishes - How does this affect the orbiting starships?How does a community of a Universe Simulator have the same language as its creator?How would US Presidential elections be affected if voters could choose the state their vote for President was counted in?How Does One Ensures the Immortality of Their ConsciousnessHow do I retain national independence while also having a one world government?How can Ganymede have an Earth-like gravity without us having realized it?How would one make a lion mount for a fantasy world?

            Output visual diagram of pictureASCII-art logic gate diagramBooks on a ShelfDetermine the Dimensions of a Rotated RectangleDraw a Houndstooth PatternDraw and label an ASCII hexagonal gridGolf me an ASCII AlphabetASCII Jigsaw PuzzleOutput a pretty boxASCII-Art Venn DiagramASCII Exact Cover with Rectangles