Question

:For other uses, see {{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation).

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A question is any of several kinds of linguistic expressions normally used by a questioner to request the presentation of information back to the questioner, in the form of an answer, by the audience. Alternatively, one may say that the question is the request itself, and the interrogative sentence merely expresses it, but we will not use this sense. Questions thus resemble other requesting expressions as well as commands in normally being used to elicit a response. Indeed some expressions, such as "Would you pass the butter?", have the grammatical form of questions but function as requests for action, not for answers; these will be treated under request rather than here.

Related Topics:
Information - Answer - Sentence - Command - Response - Request

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Questions have a number of secondary uses: They may be used ("Socratically") to guide the questioner along an avenue of research. A rhetorical question is asked in order to make a point, and does not expect an answer (often the answer is implied or obvious). Presuppositional questions, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass the audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm. Questions can also be titles of works of art and literature (e.g. Leo Tolstoy's short story How Much Land Does a Man Need? and the movie What About Bob?).

Related Topics:
("Socratically") - Research - Rhetorical question - Leo Tolstoy - How Much Land Does a Man Need? - Movie - What About Bob?

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