Questions

7.10. Questions

7.10.1. Questions in colloquial Japanese

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

/da/ or

/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. Questions in formal Japanese

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