A tag question is a construction in which an interrogative element is added to a declarative or an imperative clause.
The resulting speech act comprises an assertion paired with a request for confirmation.
Question tags are formed in several ways, and many languages give a choice of formation.
In some languages the most common is a single word or fixed phrase, whereas in others it is formed by a regular grammatical construction.
or the informal form right?, though more often realised as the word for true or truth, in fact, such as in Polish prawda?, Slovak pravda?
or the particle však?, or Spanish ¿verdad?, which in turn can be presented in a negative form (not true?
In several languages, the tag question is built around the standard interrogative form.
Grammatically productive tag forms are formed in the same way as simple questions, referring back to the verb in the main clause and agreeing in time and person (where the language has such agreement).
The tag may include a pronoun, such as in English, or may not, as is the case in Scottish Gaelic.
If the rules of forming interrogatives require it, the verb in the tag may be an auxiliary, as in English.
The auxiliary must agree with the tense, aspect and modality of the verb in the preceding sentence.
When there is no special emphasis, the rule of thumb often applies that a positive sentence has a negative tag and vice versa.
This form may express confidence, or seek confirmation of the asker's opinion or belief.
In particular, let's is always used with the positive unbalanced form: Patterns of negation can show regional variations.
In North East Scotland, for example, positive to positive is used when no special effect is desired: Note the following variations in the negation when the auxiliary is the I form of the copula: English tag questions can have a rising or a falling intonation pattern.
[3] This can be contrasted with Polish, French or German, for example, where all tags rise, or with the Celtic languages, where all fall.
As a rule, the English rising pattern is used when soliciting information or motivating an action, that is, when some sort of response is required.
is of Scottish origin,[6] and can be heard across much of Scotland, New Zealand,[7][8] Canada[9][10][11][12] and the North-Eastern United States.
[citation needed] Like English, the Celtic languages form tag questions by echoing the verb of the main sentence.
Some examples from Scottish Gaelic: (Here, eil and fhaca are dependent forms of the irregular verbs tha and chunnaic.)
In Welsh, a special particle on is used to introduce tag questions, which are then followed by the inflected form of a verb.