General English Level 4 Version 2.1 © 2004 acl Pty Ltd GELEV4 Unit 04 Topic 03.doc Look Negative sentence Positive question tag Answer The rider didn't fall off, did he? Yes, he did. It didn't rain yesterday, did it? No, it didn't. You weren't going very fast, were you? No, I wasn't. When we answer a tag question, we can use short answers. The answer tells us what really happened. We reply to the statement rather than the tag. If we agree with a positive statement, we say yes. If we agree with a negative statement, we say no. Examples From the conversation, we know that Lucas fell off the horse. We would answer the tag questions below like this: Lucas fell off the horse, didn't he? Yes he did. (we agree) Lucas didn't fall off the horse, did he? Yes he did. (we don't agree) Let's imagine a friend had an accident but did not have to go to hospital. We would answer the tag questions below like this: Your friend had to go to hospital, didn't he? No he didn't (we don't agree) Your friend didn't have to go to hospital, did he? No he didn't (we agree) Information The meaning of the tag question depends on how you say it. 1. We use rising intonation in the question tag, when we are checking information. You were OK, weren't you Lucas? 2. We use falling intonation when we know the answer, and are asking the question to encourage the speaker to continue. Yeah and the parachute fell on top of you and you almost drowned, didn't you Ming? 132