🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Why is only the ? and ! put at the front and upside down of a sentence in Spanish?
teftIt’s because Spanish sentence structure is different from English. In Spanish the sentences “Can I tell you? (¿Te lo puedo decir?) and “I can tell you.” (Te lo puedo decir.) are formed the same way. The initial punctuation lets the reader know that the sentence is a question or exclamation or not so they can parse the sentence properly from the start.
Well now I have to wonder why other languages don’t do the front punctuation thing. It would be just as helpful in English as it is in Spanish to know a sentence is a question before getting to the end of it. Scrambling to lift your voice into a question you’ve been reading as a statement until you see the question mark at the end is awkward. lol
usualsuspect191Scrambling to lift your voice into a question you’ve been reading as a statement until you see the question mark at the end is awkward
I’d argue this is exactly why it’s not necessary on English; what makes it a question tends to be the inflection at the very end so no real need for a warning way at the beginning.
Also, while English certainly can form questions that are identical to statements (“They fly now?” “They fly now.”), it’s not necessary or even the most common way. More of the burden for clear communication can be left to the writer.