Re: interrogative tail or head ?

From: "claudio" <claudio.soboll@...>
> questions are often psychologically unwelcome, not only due to their
> forcing character to answer, but also due to their surprising
> character (only in spoken speech).
> "surprising" due to the appearance of question marks (or raising
> intonation) at the end of a sentence.
> even the chinese interrogativ-particle "ne" apears at the end.
> for many particles , the final apearence is usefull, because we
> humans talk sometimes "brainstorming-like" without having the complete
> sentence we want to tell our listeners in mind,
> before we open our mouth.
> but doesnt exist the interrogative intention of a speaker always in mind
> *before* man formulates the question ?
> so how come that our interrogative particles dont appearn at the head
> of a sentence ?
Well, one answer is: they do.

In English the normal yes/no question form adds a form of "do" at the
beginning:

    He likes cheese.
    - Does he like cheese?
    - Do you know that for sure?
    - He hates provolone, doesn't he?

Or else it moves "to be" or other auxverbs to the front:

    The sky is falling.
    - Has it been?
    - Is it getting worse?
    - Would you fetch me an umbrella?

For other kinds of questions, there's also "wh-" question words that go at
the beginning.

    He likes cheese.
    - What does he like?
    - Why does he like it?
    - How did that happen?
    - How come he told you?

Of course these can get moved around for emphasis ("He likes *what*?") or in

[And of course in Spanish there's the "opening question mark" <¿>, which
marks the beginning of a question.]

    *Muke!

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