English Grammar – Question Tags Public Class

About the Class

This class would deal with the problems with the verb forms – Do,Does and Did. As the term indicates, ‘tag’ is an attachment. So a question tag is an attachment to something. It is used to ask a question to confirm a statement. A question tag does not stand on its own. It is always added to a statement. There are two types of statements. Positive and Negative statements. In case of positive statements, we use negative tags and vice-versa. Eg:- She is late, isn’t she? She is not late, is she? These types of question tags we normally use in spoken form when we want to get the opinion of the person spoken to or as a sort of confirmation to what you are saying. The formation of the tag is like this: An auxiliary verb+ pronoun. If the auxiliary verb is already there in the statement, it is the same verb form which we have to use in framing the tag. Or if it is any of the forms of ‘be, have or do’, then too it is the same verb form, which we have to use in the tag.

The problem arises when there is only the main verb that is the action verb. In that case we should split that verb into 2 forms that is make one auxiliary out of it and then the main form. Here we have to take the help of the ‘do’ auxiliary. We have 3 forms of this. Do, does and did. We use ‘does’ with simple present tense singular verb. For example: She reads a book, doesn’t she? We use ‘do’ with plural verb like: The children play in the garden, don’t they? We use ‘did’ with past tense irrespective of whether it is singular or plural. Eg:- He finished his work, didn’t he? They ran fast, didn’t they?

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Keywords: grammar, question tags, languages, english