Questions

Questions

The German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer argues that the world as it developed is the consequence of answers to questions people had raised. In order to understand the world, one has to understand the questions to which it is the answer. And then, one may question the validity of the questions or the answers or both. Therefore, questions have the absolute philosophical and practical priority.

Questions and interrogatives (interrogare is Latin for 'to question') invert the position of the verb and the subject:

Statement	Question
Du fährst heute nach Berlin.	Fährst du heute nach Berlin?
Er hat lange gewartet.	Hat er lange gewartet?
Ihr könnt nicht zum Essen kommen.	Könnt ihr nicht zum Essen kommen?

 

Entscheidungsfragen, decision questions, because they demand a decision from the listener, demand other answers.

You always put the interrogative in the first position of the sentence, followed by the verb and then the subject (subject-verb inversion).

Interrogative pronouns - the answer will be the name of a person or a noun indicating the object, or perhaps a whole sentence explaining "what is the matter," etc.

Interrogative adjectives in this chapter - the word that asks "which."

Temporal, causal, modal, local.

time?	Wann kommst du nach Berlin? An Weihnachten.
reason or cause?	Warum kümmerst du dich um ihn. Ich finde ihn nett.
manner?	Wie geht es dir? Mir geht es gut.
direction?	Woher kommt der Zug? Von Hamburg.