Questions

7.10. Questions

7.10.1. Colloquial questions

It is quite easy to make a question sentence in colloquial Japanese. Simply say a sentence with a raising tone at the end.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	kyo'	u	wa	(space)	sa	mu'	i
Structure:	noun (today)		topic marker		adjective (cold)
Meaning:	It is cold today.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	kyo'	u	wa	(space)	sa	mu'	i^*1
Structure:	noun (today)		topic marker		adjective (cold)
Meaning:	Is it cold today?

*1: It begins with a lower tone and ends with a higher tone, because of the tone raising.

You can say "It is cold today?" in English, so I think this way of making question sentences is easy to understand. There is an exception, though. If the final word of a sentence is a present form of the copula, which is either plain

/da/ or polite

/desu/, you need to remove it. You might be fed up with the irregularity of the copula. Be sure that past form copulas are not removed.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	to'	ma	to	wa	(space)	ya	sa	i	da
Structure:	noun (tomato)			topic marker		noun (vegitable)			copula (is)
Meaning:	Tomatoes are vegitables.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	to'	ma	to	wa	(space)	ya	sa	i ^*2
Structure:	noun (tomato)			topic marker		noun (vegitable)
Meaning:	Are tomatoes vegitables?

*2: It begins with a higher tone and ends with an additionally higher tone, because of the tone raising.

In questions, the affirmation suffix is quite commonly used like this:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

to'

(space)

na'

Structure:

noun
(tomato)

topic
marker

noun
(vegitable)

copula
(is)

affirmation
suffix

Meaning:

The fact is that tomatoes are vegitables.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	to'	ma	to	wa	(space)	ya	sa	i	na'	no
Structure:	noun (tomato)			topic marker		noun (vegitable)			copula (is)	affirmation suffix
Meaning:	Is it true that tomatoes are vegitables?

Please be sure that the copula in the affirmation suffix is removed because it is a present form copula at the end of a sentence. You have learned that the affirmation suffix

/noda/ often becomes

/Nda/, but the change never occurs when the copula in the affirmation suffix is removed.

7.10.2. Formal questions

The grammatically stricter way to make a question sentence is just to add the sentence-final postposition

/ka/, which is a question marker. The plain present copula

/da/ is also removed when followed by the question marker

/ka/, but the polite copula

/desu/ is not removed when the question marker is used. That is a difference from the colloquial way.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	kyo'	u	wa	(space)	sa	mu'	i	de	su
Structure:	noun (today)		topic marker		adjective + politeness (cold)
Meaning:	It is cold today.

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

kyo'

(space)

mu'

Structure:

noun
(today)

topic
marker

adjective + politeness
(cold)

question
marker

Meaning:

Is it cold today?

As you see, the question marks "?" are not often used with the question marker

/ka/, because having a question marker at the end of a sentence clearly means the sentence is a question. You can use both of them, though. Having both of them sounds like you are more eager to know or you are more surprised.

The formal way of making question sentences is not limited to the polite mode. You can use the question marker with plain sentences, but that is not very common in spoken Japanese, because you can be considered impolite. When you speak friendly, you use the colloquial way of making questions more often, and when you speak formally, you often use the polite mode. It is okay to use it in written Japanese, where the polite mode is not necessary.

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

kyo

(space)

syu'

Structure:

noun
(Tôkyô)

topic
marker

noun
(capital)

copula
(is)

Meaning:

Tôkyô is capital.

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

kyo

(space)

syu'

Structure:

noun
(Tôkyô)

topic
marker

noun
(capital)

question
marker

Meaning:

Is Tôkyô capital?

Please be sure that the plain present copula is removed in question sentences.

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