Yes and no

Classification Although sometimes classified as interjections, these words do not express emotion or act as calls for attention; they are not adverbs because they do not qualify any verb, adjective, or adverb. They are sometimes classified as a part of speech in their own right: sentence words or word sentences. This is the position of Otto Jespersen, who states that Yes' and 'No'... are to all intents and purposes sentences just as much as the most delicately balanced sentences ever uttered by Demosthenes or penned by Samuel Johnson." Georg von der Gabelentz, Henry Sweet, and Philipp Wegener have all written on the subject of sentence words. Both Sweet and Wegener include yes and no in this category, with Sweet treating them separately from both imperatives and interjections, although Gabelentz does not. Watts classifies yes and no as grammatical particles, in particular response particles. He also notes their relationship to the interjections oh and ah, which is that the interjections can precede yes and no but not follow them. Oh as an interjection expresses surprise, but in the combined forms oh yes and oh no merely acts as an intensifier; but ah in the combined forms ah yes and ah no retains its stand-alone meaning, of focusing upon the previous speaker's or writer's last statement. The forms *yes oh, *yes ah, *no oh, and *no ah are grammatically ill-formed. Aijmer similarly categorizes the yes and no as response signals or reaction signals. Felix Ameka classifies these two words in different ways according to the context. When used as back-channel items, he classifies them as interjections; but when they are used as the responses to a yes–no question, he classifies them as formulaic words. The distinction between an interjection and a formula is, in Ameka's view, that the former does not have an addressee (although it may be directed at a person), whereas the latter does. The yes or no in response to the question is addressed at the interrogator, whereas yes or no used as a back-channel item is a feedback usage, an utterance that is said to oneself. However, Sorjonen criticizes this analysis as lacking empirical work on the other usages of these words, in addition to interjections and feedback uses. Bloomfield and Hockett classify the words, when used to answer yes–no questions, as special completive interjections. They classify sentences comprising solely one of these two words as minor sentences. Unlike yes, no can also be an adverb of degree, applying to adjectives solely in the comparative (e.g., no greater, no sooner, but not no soon or no soonest), and an adjective when applied to nouns (e.g., "He is no fool." and Dyer's "No clouds, no vapours intervene."). Grammarians of other languages have created further, similar, special classifications for these types of words. Tesnière classifies the French and as (along with ). Fonagy observes that such a classification may be partly justified for the former two, but suggests that pragmatic holophrases is more appropriate. The Early English four-form system While Modern English has a two-form system of yes and no for affirmatives and negatives, earlier forms of English had a four-form system, comprising the words yea, nay, yes, and no. Yes contradicts a negatively formulated question, No affirms it; Yea affirms a positively formulated question, Nay contradicts it. • Will they not go? — Yes, they will. • Will they not go? — No, they will not. • Will they go? — Yea, they will. • Will they go? — Nay, they will not. This is illustrated by the following passage from Much Ado about Nothing: Benedick's answer of yea is a correct application of the rule, but as observed by W. A. Wright "Shakespeare does not always observe this rule, and even in the earliest times the usage appears not to have been consistent." Furness gives as an example the following, where Hermia's answer should, in following the rule, have been yes: Marsh calls this four-form system of Early Modern English a "needless subtlety". Tooke called it a "ridiculous distinction", with Marsh concluding that Tooke believed Thomas More to have simply made this rule up and observing that Tooke is not alone in his disbelief of More. Marsh, however, points out (having himself analyzed the works of John Wycliffe, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Skelton, and Robert of Gloucester, and Piers Plowman and ''Le Morte d'Arthur'') that the distinction both existed and was generally and fairly uniformly observed in Early Modern English from the time of Chaucer to the time of Tyndale. But after the time of Tyndale, the four-form system was rapidly replaced by the modern two-form system. Colloquial forms Non-verbal Linguist James R. Hurford notes that in many English dialects "there are colloquial equivalents of Yes and No made with nasal sounds interrupted by a voiceless, breathy h-like interval (for Yes) or by a glottal stop (for No)" and that these interjections are transcribed into writing as ' or '. These forms are particularly useful for speakers who are at a given time unable to articulate the actual words yes and no. Art historian Robert Farris Thompson has posited that mm-hmm may be a loanword from a West African language that entered the English vernacular from the speech of enslaved Africans; linguist Lev Michael, however, says that this proposed origin is implausible, and linguist Roslyn Burns states that the origin of the term is difficult to confirm. Aye and variants The word aye () as a synonym for yes in response to a question dates to the 1570s. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it is of unknown origin. It may derive from the word I (in the context of "I assent"); as an alteration of the Middle English ("yes"); or the adverb aye (meaning always "always, ever"), which comes from the Old Norse . Using aye to mean yes is archaic, having disappeared from most of the English-speaking world, but is notably still used by people from parts of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England, and (rarely) the Isle of Man in the UK, and in other parts of Ulster in Ireland. In December 1993, a witness in a court in Stirlingshire, Scotland, answered "aye" to confirm he was the person summoned, but was told by a sheriff judge that he must answer either yes or no, or else be held in contempt of court. When asked if he understood, he replied "aye" again, and was imprisoned for 90 minutes for contempt of court. On his release he said, "I genuinely thought I was answering him." Aye is also a common word in parliamentary procedure, where the phrase the ayes have it means that a motion has passed. In the House of Commons of the British Parliament, MPs vote orally by saying "aye" or "no" to indicate they approve or disapprove of the measure or piece of legislation. (In the House of Lords, by contrast, members say "content" or "not content" when voting). The term has also historically been used in nautical usage, often phrased as "aye, aye, sir" duplicating the word "aye". Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) explained that the nautical phrase was at that time usually written ay, ay, sir. most notably by Geordies. Other Other variants of "yes" include acha in informal Indian English and historically righto or righty-ho in upper-class British English, although these fell out of use during the early 20th century. == Three-form systems ==

Several languages have a three-form system, with two affirmative words and one negative. In a three-form system, the affirmative response to a positively phrased question is the unmarked affirmative, the affirmative response to a negatively phrased question is the marked affirmative, and the negative response to both forms of question is the (single) negative. For example, in Norwegian the affirmative answer to "Snakker du norsk?" ("Do you speak Norwegian?") is "Ja", and the affirmative answer to "Snakker du ikke norsk?" ("Do you not speak Norwegian?") is "Jo", while the negative answer to both questions is "Nei". Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Hungarian, German, Dutch, French, Malayalam, and Farsi all have three-form systems. Swedish, and to some extent Danish and Norwegian, also have additional forms javisst and jovisst, analogous to ja and jo, to indicate a strong affirmative response. Swedish (and Danish and Norwegian slang) also have the forms joho and nehej, which both indicate stronger response than jo or nej. Jo can also be used as an emphatic contradiction of a negative statement. Malayalam has the additional forms (), () and (), which act like question words, question tags, or to strengthen the affirmative or negative response, indicating stronger meaning than , and ( and ). The words (), (), (), (), (), () and () work in the same ways. These words are considered more polite than a curt "No!" or "Yes!". () means "it is there" and the word behaves as an affirmative response like (). The usage of () to simply mean "No" or "No way!" is informal and may be casual or sarcastic, while () is the more formal way of saying "false", "incorrect" or that "it is not" and is a negative response for questions. The word () has a stronger meaning than (). () is used to mean "OK" or "correct", with the opposite () meaning "not OK" or "not correct". It is used to answer affirmatively to questions to confirm any action by the asker, but to answer negatively one says (). () and () both mean "to want" and "not to want". == Other languages with four-form systems ==

Like Early Modern English, the Romanian language has a four-form system. The affirmative and negative responses to positively phrased questions are da and nu, respectively. But in responses to negatively phrased questions they are prefixed with ba (i.e. ba da and ba nu). nu is also used as a negation adverb, infixed between subject and verb. Thus, for example, the affirmative response to the negatively phrased question "N-ai plătit?" ("Didn't you pay?") is "Ba da." ("Yes."—i.e. "I did pay."), and the negative response to a positively phrased question beginning "Se poate să ...?" ("Is it possible to ...?") is "Nu, nu se poate." ("No, it is not possible."—note the use of nu for both no and negation of the verb.) == Related words in other languages and translation problems ==

Finnish Finnish does not generally answer yes–no questions with either adverbs or interjections but answers them with a repetition of the verb in the question, negating it if the answer is the negative. (This is an echo response.) The answer to ("Are you coming from town?") is the verb form itself, ("We are coming.") However, in spoken Finnish, a simple "Yes" answer is somewhat more common, Negative questions are answered similarly. Negative answers are just the negated verb form. The answer to ("Do you know Mr Lehto?") is ("I don't know.") or simply . ("I don't."). However, Finnish also has particle words for "yes": (formal) and (colloquial). A yes–no question can be answered "yes" with either or , which are not conjugated according to the person and plurality of the verb. , however, is always conjugated and means "no". Latvian Up until the 16th century Latvian did not have a word for "yes" and the common way of responding affirmatively to a question was by repeating the question's verb, just as in Finnish. The modern day was borrowed from Middle High German and first appeared in 16th-century religious texts, especially catechisms, in answers to questions about faith. At that time such works were usually translated from German by non-Latvians that had learned Latvian as a foreign language. By the 17th century, was being used by some Latvian speakers that lived near the cities, and more frequently when speaking to non-Latvians, but they would revert to agreeing by repeating the question verb when talking among themselves. By the 18th century the use of was still of low frequency, and in Northern Vidzeme the word was almost non-existent until the 18th and early 19th century. Only in the mid-19th century did really become usual everywhere. Welsh It is often assumed that Welsh has no words at all for yes and no. It has and , and and . However, these are used only in specialized circumstances and are some of the ways in Welsh of saying yes or no. and are used to respond to sentences of simple identification, while and are used to respond to questions specifically in the past tense. As in Finnish, the main way to state yes or no, in answer to yes–no questions, is to echo the verb of the question. The answers to "" ('Is Ffred coming?') are either "" ('He is (coming).') or "" ('He is not (coming)'). In general, the negative answer is the positive answer combined with . For more information on yes and no answers to yes–no questions in Welsh, see Jones, listed in further reading. Latin Latin has no single words for yes and no. Their functions as word sentence responses to yes–no questions are taken up by sentence adverbs, single adverbs that are sentence modifiers and also used as word sentences. There are several such adverbs classed as truth-value adverbs—including , , , , , , , , and (negative). They express the speaker's/writer's feelings about the truth value of a proposition. They, in conjunction with the negator , are used as responses to yes–no questions. For example: Latin also employs echo responses. Galician and Portuguese These languages have words for yes and no, namely and in Galician and and in Portuguese. However, answering a question with them is less idiomatic than answering with the verb in the proper conjugation. Spanish In Spanish, the words 'yes' and 'no' are unambiguously classified as adverbs: serving as answers to questions and also modifying verbs. The affirmative can replace the verb after a negation ( = ''I don't own a car, but he does) or intensify it (I don't believe he owns a car. / He does own one! = ). The word is the standard adverb placed next to a verb to negate it ( = I '''don't' own a car). Double negation is normal and valid in Spanish, and it is interpreted as reinforcing the negation ( = I own no car). Nepali In Nepali, there is no one word for 'yes' and 'no' as it depends upon the verb used in the question. The words most commonly translated as equivalents are 'हो' (ho; ) and 'होइन' (hoina; ) are in fact the affirmative and negative forms of the same verb 'हो' (ho; ) and hence is only used when the question asked contains said verb. In other contexts, one must repeat the affirmative or negative forms of the verb being asked, for instance "तिमीले खाना खायौँ?" (timīle khānā khāyau?; ) would be answered by "खाएँ" (khāe˜; ), which is the verb "to eat" conjugated for the past tense first person singular. In certain contexts, the word "नाई" (nāī) can be used to deny something that is stated, for instance politely passing up an offer. Chinese Speakers of Chinese use echo responses. In Standard Mandarin Chinese, the closest equivalents to yes and no are to state "" (; ) and "" (; ). The phrase () may also be used for the interjection "no", and (ǹg) may be used for "yes". Similarly, in Cantonese, the preceding are 係 hai6 (lit: "is") and 唔係 (lit: "not is") m4 hai6, respectively. One can also answer 冇錯 mou5 co3 () for the affirmative, although there is no corresponding negative to this. Japanese The Japanese words for yes and no, "" (hai) and "" (iie), work differently than in English. Hai is often used to simply acknowledge hearing the question, prior to answering it. On their own, hai and iie signify agreement or disagreement with the proposition put by the question. This is especially clear in answers to negative questions: if asked, , answering with the affirmative hai would mean "Right, I am not going"; whereas in English, answering "yes" would be to contradict the negative question. Nevertheless, echo responses are typical in Japanese. Polish In Polish, the words for 'yes' and 'no' are tak and nie, respectively. Formally speaking, they signify agreement or disagreement with the proposition put by the question, as in Japanese. However, it is common to simply use tak and nie to give affirmative and negative responses, as in English. Double negation is normal and valid in Polish, and it is interpreted as reinforcing the negation, e.g. nie mam nic () meaning 'I don't have anything' or 'I have nothing'. Complications These differences between languages make translation difficult. No two languages are isomorphic at the most elementary level of words for yes and no. Translation from two-form to three-form systems are equivalent to what English-speaking school children learning French or German encounter. The mapping becomes complex when converting two-form to three-form systems. There are many idioms, such as reduplication (in French, German, and Italian) of affirmatives for emphasis (the Dutch and German ). The mappings are one-to-many in both directions. The German has no fewer than 13 English equivalents that vary according to context and usage (yes, yeah, and no when used as an answer; well, all right, so, and now, when used for segmentation; oh, ah, uh, and eh when used an interjection; and do you, will you, and their various inflections when used as a marker for tag questions) for example. Moreover, both and are frequently used as additional particles for conveying nuanced meaning where, in English, no such particle exists. Straightforward, non-idiomatic, translations from German to English and then back to German can often result in the loss of all of the modal particles such as and from a text. Translation from languages that have word systems to those that do not, such as Latin, is similarly problematic. As Calvert says, "Saying yes or no takes a little thought in Latin". == See also ==