Table 2 Question types, examples and their frequencies. The sum of the relative frequency does not add up to 100% as a question can be categorised to be part of more than one type and comments can contain multiple different questions.
From: Constructing Expertise Through Questions?—Potentials of Corpus Pragmatic Regression Analyses
Type | Example | Absolute number (relative amount) of comments containing type |
|---|---|---|
Question-word question (Wh-word question) | Wieso fragen Sie das? ‘Why do you ask that?’ | 33,125 (42.52%) |
Polar interrogative | Kann man das so simpel hochrechnen? ‘Is it possible to scale it up that easily?’ | 28,826 (37.00%) |
Question tag question | Könnte doch auch sein, oder nicht ? ‘Could be, couldn’t it?’ | 2,953 (3.80%) |
Vielleicht(‘maybe’/‘perhaps’)-question | Vielleicht sollten Sie eine diesbezügliche Anfrage an die zuständige PTB Arbeitsgruppe 4.41 richten? ‘Perhaps you should ask the PTB working group 4.41?’ | 1,531 (1.97%) |
Question that starts with a wenn(‘if’)-clause | Wenn die Welt sowieso untergeht, warum dann nicht noch wenigstens etwas Spaß haben? ‘If the world is coming to an end anyway, why not at least have some fun?’ | 3,700 (4.75%) |
Short question of max. 2 words | Na und? ‘So what?’ | 9,238 (11.86%) |
Declarative question (V2-order without other question marker) | Sie sagen selbst, dass RKI «Mistzahlen» liefert? ‘You say yourself that RKI gives “rubbish numbers”?’ | 7,317 (9.39%) |
Question without inflicted verb | Heimat großer Töchter und Söhne? ‘Home to great daughters and sons?’ | 10,087 (12.95%) |
Comments with only unclassified questions | / | 11,338 (14.55%) |