Answers: short and complete / Basic English Grammar

As you know, general questions are asked by moving or adding a helping verb before the subject, or by moving the form of the verb “to BE” before the subject.
General questions can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”, and they are also logically called “yes” or “no” questions.

To make the answer complete, you need to add a positive sentence after “yes” and a negative sentence after “no”. These sentences are full but inverted versions of the corresponding questions.
Note that all helping verbs are simply moved from the beginning of the sentences, but the forms of the helping verb “to DO” are completely removed from the positive answers, and the main verbs must change their form to the correct one.

But besides the complete answers there are also short answers in English.
These short answers contain after “yes” or “no” only 1) the subject and 2) the helping verb or the verb “to BE”, which have helped to make the question.
Negative short answers also contain “not” after the verb.

Remember that the helping verb “to DO” is preserved in short answers even in positive sentences.

Note that modal verbs are also used as helping verbs in short answers.

So, short answers are similar to complete answers, but end as soon as the subject and the helping verb or the verb “to BE” are pronounced.
And only if the question is asked using the form of the helping verb “to DO”, this helping verb is removed from the complete positive answer but remains in the short positive answer.

Remember that you can answer the question using both types of answers (complete and short) at the same time. In this case, first there will be a short answer, and then - a complete one (but without repeating "yes" or "no").

Note that if there are two helping verbs in the question, the short answer must contain both.

We can also use the ultra-short answers “yes” or “no” in informal conversation, but such answers are not desirable in formal speech.

Special questions are asked to get specific information.
Special questions start with the wh-words that show what information is needed.
These questions can not be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”.
We need that the answer to be more detailed.

So, the complete answers for these questions are the positive sentences, which are inverted versions of the corresponding questions. And the wh-words are replaced with the information we are asking about.

Subject questions are the type of special questions that we ask when we need to identify or describe the subject.
In subject questions, unlike other special questions, the word order is not inverted, and we just add the wh-word at the beginning (instead of the subject or before the subject).

So, the complete answers to these questions are positive sentences that are full and not inverted versions of the corresponding questions. We only replace the wh-word with a subject or a description of the subject.

There are no short answers to special questions, because we do not get the information that we ask about in them. (The short answers contain only the subject and verb, but the information we ask in special questions is usually contained in objects or adverbs).

But we can use the short answers to subject questions.
They contain only 1) a subject and 2) a helping verb or the verb “to BE”.
So, the specificity of short answers to subject questions is the usage of the helping verb “to DO” instead of the main verb, even if it is not used in the question.

In informal speaking, we can use ultra-short answers to special and subject questions. These are subjects, objects, or adverbs (or prepositional phrases that use as adverbs).

Remember that if the subject has different persons in the question and the answer, the verb form must also be changed in the answer.
00:00 General questions: complete answers
02:22 General questions: short answers
06:13 Special and subject questions: complete and short answers
11:11 Tests
14:35 Summary

English Grammar.
Lesson # 28. Basic.

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