Despite the spelling of women, it is the pronunciation of the first syllable rather than the second that changes: woman is pronounced /wo man/; women is pronounced /wi man/; the second syl-lables, -man and -men, are pronounced exactly alike with an unstressed vowel /man/. | 216 Sentences Exercise Underline the verbs in the following questions and label each question as either yes-no or information. yes-no Will you mail the letters at the post office for me 1. Can you determine the exact cost 2. Whom did the police finally arrest for the crime 3. How much can we afford 4. Have they decided yet 5. Was the ending of the movie really surprising 6. Why should they want that 7. Is the phone ringing 8. Has it been raining all day 9. Must they insure it for the full amount 10. Will you be ready by six 11. How much would it cost 12. Will my using my cell phone disturb you 13. Why should we care about it 14. Has Lois approved it yet 15. How often will we be meeting over the next couple of weeks Yes-no questions There are two different ways that English forms yes-no questions yes-no questions and tag questions. Here is an example of each Yes-no question Are you ready to go Tag question You are ready to go aren t you Since tag questions always involve negatives we will postpone dealing with them until the next section on negatives. Questions and Negatives 217 The basic characteristic of yes-no questions is that the subject and verb are inverted. In a statement the normal word order is subject verb. In yes-no questions the subject and verb have been inverted so that the word order is verb subject. Here are some more examples with the subject in italics and the verb in bold Statement We should call them. Bill is sick. I can come too. They will be home late. You are leaving tonight. He has lost his mind. Inverted yes-no question Should we call them Is Bill sick Can I come too Will they be home late Are you leaving tonight Has he lost his mind Only a handful of verbs can be used in forming inverted yes-no questions. The vast majority of verbs cannot be inverted. For example Statement word order John works in New York. He commutes from Princeton. His parents live in California. Inverted word order X Works John in New York X Commutes he from .
