question

A question is a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or the request made using such an expression. The information requested may be provided in the form of an answer. Questions have developed a range of uses that go beyond the simple eliciting of information from another party. Rhetorical questions, for example, are used to make a point, and are not expected to be answered. Many languages have special grammatical forms for questions (for example, in the English sentence “Are you happy?”, the inversion of the subject you and the verb are shows it to be a question rather than a statement). However questions can also be asked without using these interrogative grammatical structures – for example one may use an imperative, as in “Tell me your name”. For detailed information about the grammar of question formation, see Interrogative, and for English specifically, .