STYLE IN WRITTEN ENGLISH

Question

In grammar, a question is a type of sentence expressed in a form that requires (or appears to require) an answer. Also known as an interrogative sentence, a question is generally distinguished from a sentence that makes a statement, delivers a command, or expresses an exclamation.

In terms of syntax, a question is usually characterized by inversion of the subject and the first verb in the verb phrase, beginning with an interrogative pronoun or ending with a tag question.

Linguists commonly recognize three main types of questions: Yes-No Questions, Wh-Questions, and Alternative Questions.

EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

• "This is a question that no one particularly wants to hear, but, where did they put his head?"
  (Xander in "Teacher's Pet." Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997)
• "I know this is a silly question before I ask it, but can you Americans speak any other language besides English?"
  (Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds, 2009)
• "Question is, what did camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS?"
  (The Doctor in "The Runaway Bride." Doctor Who, 2005)

Say or Tell

Say and tell are irregular verbs. The past simple of say is said, the past simple of tell is told:

They asked if I was looking for work and I said yes.

Then he told me how he had got the job by lying about his age.

We use say and tell in different ways in reported speech. Say focuses on the words someone said and tell focuses more on the content or message of what someone said:

‘Hello,’ she said.

Not: ‘Hello,’ she told.

She told him they were going on holiday. (The focus is on the information.)

We use say with direct speech. We don’t normally use tell in this way:

He said, ‘I’m not paying £50 for that.’

Sequence of Tenses 

In English grammar, the term sequence of tenses (SOT) refers to agreement in tensebetween the verb phrase in a subordinate clause and the verb phrase in the main clause that accompanies it.

"The ordinary sequence of tenses," say Bryan Garner, "is to have a past tense verb in the principal clause when the subordinate clause is in the past tense." Sometimes, however, this sequence is violated "by having the principal verb in the present tense" (Garner's Modern English Usage, 2016).

As observed by R.L. Trask, the sequence-of-tense rule (also known as backshifting) is "less rigid in English than in some other languages" (Dictionary of English Grammar, 2000). However, it is also true that the sequence-of-tense rule doesn't occur in all languages.

See Examples and Observations below. Also see:

• Agreement
• Backshift
• Indirect Speech
• Inflection
• Notes on Verbs
• Past Tense

EXAMPLES

"Most commonly [sequence of tenses] is a case of a past tense in a main clause being followed by a past tense in a subordinate clause. Compare:

(a)   I assume [you are going to be late].
(present followed by present)

(b) I assumed [you were going to be late].(past followed by past)

ANTECEDENTS OF PRONOUN

In English grammar, an antecedent is the noun or noun phrase that a pronoun refers to. Also known as a referent.

More broadly, an antecedent may be any word in a sentence (or in a sequence of sentences) that another word or phrase refers to.

Despite the implications of the term (Latin ante- means "before"), "an antecedent can follow rather than precede [the pronoun]: 'For his first Pacific voyage, Cook had no chronometer'" (Concise Oxford ompanion to the English Language, 2005).

See Examples and Observations below. Also see:

• Anaphora (backward reference) and Cataphora (forward reference)
• Editing Exercise: Correcting Errors in Pronoun Reference
• Endophora and Exophora
• Faulty Pronoun Reference
• Free (Nominal) Relative Clause
• Generic Pronoun
• Head
• Paycheck Sentence
• Pro-Form
• Pronoun Agreement
• Reference and Referent
• Relative Clause 

Etymology
From the Latin, "to go before"

EXAMPLES

In the following sentences, certain pronouns are in bold print, and the antecedents of those pronouns are in italics.

• "When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them."
  (G.K. Chesterton) 
• "When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse."
  (E.B. White, Stuart Little. Harper, 1945)