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論文
Variations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions in English
Nobuko Harukawa(Kyoto Notre Dame University)

１．

Introduction

Japanese learners of English often respond incorrectly to English negative yes/noquestions because English grammar rules are different than Japanese grammar rules.
Negative yes/no questions in English are usually answered with either “yes” or “no”
depending on the correctness of the proposition, but in Japanese, the respondent usuallyanswers by saying “yes” (hai) or “no” (iie) as an answer to the presupposition, not the
proposition.
Since English negative yes/no questions have a complicated function, there have been
many studies done on negative yes/no questions (Ladd 1981, Romeo & Han 2004, Watanabe2009). However, there have been very few studies on the way of answering negative yes/noquestions (Bald 1980, Büring and Gunlogson 2000, Clancy 2008). It is especially rare to findresearch which has analyzed irregular responses to negative yes/no questions by English
native speakers.
My research question is whether native speakers of English make mistakes whenanswering negative yes/no questions which seem structurally complicated (Takahara, 2003a,
p. 281) to Japanese learners of English. In this paper, I will attempt to show that suchirregular responses often occur in authentic daily conversation, and I will investigate themeaning of these responses, why this phenomenon happens, what the function is, how native
English speakers recognize this phenomenon in their daily conversation, and how muchinfluence society has on the way people communicate in the English language. In this study,
negative yes/no questions and the responses to these questions which do not follow theprescriptive grammatical rules will be thoroughly examined and analyzed from the viewpointof communication
２．

Literature Review

The purpose of this chapter is to review the results of previous studies about negative
questions and answers, in addition to studies about the communicative aspects of negative
questions.
In communicative grammar, Leech and Svartvik (1998) compared declarative andinterrogative sentences and analyzed yes/no questions from the perspective ofcommunications. They found that responses are caused by both declarative and interrogative
sentences in conversation, and the responses give the speaker the information that they need(p. 184). For a yes/no question, only one of two answers is possible, an affirmation or aNobuko Harukawa

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negation (p. 185).
Machida (2010) examined multiple ways to answer negative sentences in English. He
pointed out that the issue is not simply a conflict between a negative sentence and a positive
sentence. According to Machida, a negative sentence exists as an expression that shows thatthe situation described in a positive sentence is assumed to be false. Therefore, negation is an
act of denial that denies the entire situation or condition (p. 18).
Terakado and Sato (2008) argued that usually an expected situation is expressed as anaffirmative sentence, and a negative sentence appears only when an unusual situation arises.
An affirmative sentence usually expresses the way things are or the way that things exist in anormal situation. However, negation is not merely the opposite of affirmation because all
judgments in language are subject to value judgments, and affirmation and negation inlanguage are fundamentally dependent on the value judgments of the speaker (p. 97).
Horn (1989) and Takahara (2003a) referred to the function of negation. A negative yes/noquestion has a complicated function that is interpreted semantically due to other words in thecontext (p. 281).
Murata and Narita (1996) argued that the function of negative questions is not neutral.
Instead, negative questions are always either positively biased or negatively biased. When anegative yes/no question has a positive bias, the speaker believes or at least expects that apositive answer is correct. On the other hand, when a negative yes/no question has a negative
bias, the speaker believes or at least expects that a negative answer is correct. For example,
the following three sentences have a negative bias because the interrogators of thesequestions expect that the responses will be negative (p. 7 - 8).
(1) Don’t you believe me?
(2) Can’t you drive straight?
(3) Hasn’t the train left yet? [p. 7 - 8]
A negative bias occurs when the speaker faces a situation in which he/she expects anaffirmative answer, but it is not given. For example, if a person had a very doubtful
expression on his/her face, the other person might say (1) above. This utterance can beinterpreted as “I thought that you believed me.” This kind of question indicates theinterrogator’s surprise, disappointment, or confusion (p. 8).
Romeo and Han (2004) claimed that in English yes/no questions, there is aninterpretational difference which is correlated with “preposed” and “non-preposed” negation.
“Preposed” negation in yes/no questions means that the question has a positive bias and“non-preposed” negative means that the question has a negative bias (p. 609). For example, if
a speaker says “Doesn’t John drink?,” the speaker believes or at least expects that John
drinks, so this question is a preposed question because it has a positive bias. On the other
hand, the question “Does John not drink?” is a non-preposed question (i.e., it has a negativeVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions in English

57bias) because the question asks whether or not John is a teetotaler.
Kamio and Takami (1998) referred to negative questions as one of three special featuresof English utterance style. The “territory theory” states that manifestation of territory isfound in human language (p. 3). For example:(4) a. That lady is my mother.
b. Isn’t that lady your mother?
c. You went to Okinawa last summer.
Sentence (4)a only consist of the information that the speaker knows, but (4)b consist of
information that both the speaker and the listener share. On the other hand, (4)c consists of
information that only the listener knows. According to Kamio and Takami, information
belongs to the speaker’s and/or the listener’s “territory.” because the interrogators of thesequestions expect that the responses will be negative. They claimed that in negative English
questions, the extent of “territory” differs between the speaker and the listener.
Kamio (1979) argued that the territory theory has an important element in irregularresponses for negative yes/no questions because in English grammar, fundamentally, when aquestion is answered with “yes,” it means “correct,” while “no” means “incorrect.” When the
territory is shared by the interrogator and the respondent, the respondent who agrees withthe content of the proposition responds “yes” to show his/her agreement about whether the
proposition is correct or incorrect. In other words, it sometimes happens that the respondentis affected by the interrogator’s intent and knowledge because they have common informationand the respondent already knows the truth of the proposition when the interrogator asks
with a form of a negative question. The samples found in my data corpora may include
irregular responses that are explainable in accordance with the territory theory (p. 213-231).
Watanabe (2009) argued that unlike affirmative yes/no questions, a negative yes/noquestion is never a neutral question (p. 21). He referred to the implication of answers tonegative questions, and he contrasts Japanese and English as to the forms of answers tonegative questions. English negative questions, whether positively or negatively biased, elicit
constant patterns. “Yes” always introduces a positive statement, and “no” always introduces anegative statement. However, negative Japanese questions with a negative bias elicit
answers of the reverse pattern. In Japanese, “yes” introduces a negative statement and “no”
introduces a positive statement. In English, answers to negative questions are determinedbased solely on what is being asked. However, in Japanese, answers to negative questions are
determined based on whether the proposition behind the question is either affirmative or
negative, depending on whether the negative question is positively biased or negatively
biased (p. 22).
Koyama (2002) confirms this difference in the responses between English and Japanese
negative questions (p. 59). He describes how in Japanese, use of hai and iie is more complex

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than in English, as illustrated below:(5)a. Don’t you think he is a genius?
Yes, I do. / No, I don’t.
b. kare wa tensaida to omoimasennka?
hai, sou omoimasu / iie, sou wa omoimasen [p. 59]
Terakado and Sato (2008) studied the differences between Japanese, English, andGerman in the way of responding to negative yes/no questions. They concluded that thedifferences originate from the speaker’s situational assessment, which becomes apresupposition when a negative question is addressed. Affirmative interrogatives are thesame in English and Japanese, but for negative yes/no questions, the difference is that inJapanese, when a question is constructed, there is no presupposition that the expected
response will be affirmative (p. 89).
When a primary sentence is a negative sentence, such as (6), a negative interrogative is
implied, as in (7). However, if a primary sentence is affirmative, as in (8), the impliedinterrogative is affirmative, as in (9). Even though both affirmative and negativeinterrogatives can be neutral expressions, the interrogator is likely to expect an affirmative
answer when he/she chooses an affirmative interrogative, while he/she is likely to expect anegative answer when he/she chooses a negative interrogative.
(6) You didn’t finish your homework.
(7) Didn’t you finish homework?
(8) You finished your homework.
(9) Did you finish your homework?
(10) Haven’t you finished your homework yet?
If what is being asked is whether the respondent’s homework is finished or not, anaffirmative interrogative is normally used, as in (9). However, if an interrogator assumes thatthe homework has probably not been finished, a negative interrogative is used, as in (10). In
Japanese, interrogatives are neutral so that they do not imply whether they are affirmative or
negative. In Japanese, the respondent is expected to respond affirmatively when being asked
an affirmative question, and to respond negatively when being asked a negative question.
In research by Yoshikuni (2005) about incorrect answers to negative questions from theperspective of educational psychology, he mentioned a point made by Yasui (1996) thatJapanese learners of English often give incorrect answers when responding to English
negative questions, and these errors are caused by influence from their native language.
Since these incorrect answers convey intentions that are the opposite of the correct answers,
these errors can cause significant mutual misunderstandings (p. 52).
Clancy (2002) claimed that second language learners of English find negative questions

Variations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions in English

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difficult to understand and teachers find them equally difficult to teach in the classroom. The
reason why Japanese students of English find negative questions difficult to understand isthat they do not understand the function of such questions. Negative questions are oftendelivered in stimulus-response situations. The function of negative questions is often a meansof expressing surprise or disbelief. As function is often neglected in textbooks that are
currently offered on the market, it is up to the individual teachers to develop their own
materials and props. As a result, most Japanese university students still make mistakes
when answering negative questions (p. 88 - 90).
Nakano (1994) conducted research on negative questions from an English-Japanesetranslation viewpoint and explained the responses to those questions by comparing them inboth languages. He said that English “yes” and Japanese hai are affirmative answers and “no”
and iie are negative answers, but the responses reverse when answering negative questions.
For example, if the word “no” is the answer to a negative English question, it is oftentranslated into Japanese using affirmative words such as ee and un, so that the translation
will flow more naturally for Japanese readers (p.105-110). Nakano points out that Soseki
Natsume (1867 -1916), a famous Japanese novelist, occasionally purposely made charactersin his novels respond to negative questions following English grammar (Natsume, 1969).
Kodani (2002) investigated through drama how questions and answers are performed indialogs. He found that negative questions have two kinds of usages: one is to confirm theaffirmative concept (“yes” is expected) and the other is to confirm a negative concept (“no” isexpected). It is clear which usage is used according to the context and its situation. The
answer is “yes” if the respondent approves of the proposition, and the answer is “no” if he/she
is opposed to the proposition (p. 188 - 189).
Milroy (1998) stated that according to descriptive grammar, a “grammatical sentence”
means that it follows the rules of the language as it is used by native speakers. These rules
are followed unconsciously and native speakers usually do not make mistakes (p. 98). This
unconscious knowledge of a set of rules which allows native speakers to produce grammaticalsentences and to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical sentences can be described asa “mental grammar.” (p. 99)
Milroy concluded that so-called “bad grammar” is a cover term to describe a number ofdifferent kinds of English expressions. Some are widely used by educated speakers andwriters, but are excluded from traditional prescriptions. All are perfectly grammatical,
providing evidence of a complex body of rules which constitute mental grammar, theunconscious knowledge which speakers have of their own language. In comparison, theprescriptions which are recommended as “good grammar” are revealed as at best marginal,
and frequently as unrealistic and trivial (p. 101). As Milroy concluded, “Bad grammar is acover term to describe a number of different kinds of English expressions.” This conclusion
leads us further into a consideration of irregular responses in negative yes/no questions.
Bald (1980) investigated the functions which “yes” and “no” have as responses in English

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conversations, what they mean, and the correlations with intonation. Bald found that withthe exception of one type of context, and as long as the choice of intonation does not counteract
it, “yes” and “no” signal agreement and disagreement, respectively, in all of the instances thatthey examined (p. 190). He explained that the most neutral context calling for a response is ayes/no question. However, negative yes/no questions usually imply surprise or disbelief(p.191).
Also, Bald found a tendency that “yes” responses occur far more frequently than “no”
responses. One reason is that there is a preponderance of positive statements in his data and“yes” usually tends to occur after positive statements. But another factor is represented by thetype of text. For example, an interview situation prompts the interviewee to agree rather thandisagree with the interviewer (p. 190).
３．

Investigation

In order to collect data for this research, three corpora were used: the British National
Corpus, Wordbanks Online, and the Larry King Live corpus. In addition, irregular responses
were researched in materials obtained in daily life such as textbooks, novels, movies, and TV
programs. By analyzing examples from these sources, I attempted to prove that there are
instances where the responses of native English speakers to negative yes/no questions innatural conversations are grammatically irregular or incorrect.
４．

Results and Analyses

It was verified that various patterns which do not comply with standard English
grammar rules often appear in authentic English communication. I found nine examples fromseveral corpora in which English native speakers responded when negative yes/no questions
were asked.
First, in Dialogue 1 below, the respondent answered “Yeah” as an affirmative answer.
However, grammatically, the respondent should have answered “No” or “No, it wasn’t” as anegative answer. Thus, this is an irregular answer within the conversation.
1.

“…and then this, this, the phone went and I picked it up and this squeaky voiceat the end of the phone said … I thought who the Hell’s that.” “Wasn’t that me?”
“Yeah, that’s Jane.” [BNC #322]

In the question “Wasn’t that me?,” the interrogator is trying to confirm that it was not theinterrogator himself/herself because the respondent was able to infer who the actual caller
was. The situation is that the respondent already knew who the caller was, so it is obvious
from the context that the respondent’s answer is negative.
English negative yes/no questions usually cause the respondent to answer “yes” or “no”
about the proposition grammatically. In the case of 1 above, the proposition was “That wasVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions in English

61

me.” However, the function of negative questions is not neutral. Instead, the presupposition
always has a degree of bias in the direction of affirmation or negation (Murata & Narita, 1996,
p. 7). “Yeah” is an informal word for yes (Leech & Svartvik, 1977, p. 189).
It was thought that the respondent who already has the information of “that was not me”
and who also senses the negative bias in the interrogator’s sentence, would have agreed
with the fact “that was not me.” In other words, although grammatically correct, this is anirregular response from the English grammatical point of view.
We will now apply the territory theory to this case. We can assume that both theinterrogator and the respondent have almost the same information about the proposition.
According to the territory theory, information belongs to the territory of both the speaker andthe listener, and in negative questions, the extent differs from the speaker to the listener(Kamio & Takami, 1998, p.4). Thus, in this situation, the respondent has sufficient
information as to “who the Hell’s that.” On the other hand, the interrogator has theinformation of “that was not me.” But this is not a confirmed fact, so the interrogator would
like to confirm “that was not me.”
The interrogator asked about the information of “I don’t think that it was me” by using
the negative question “Wasn’t it me?” with an implied wish for confirmation of theinformation with a negative bias. So the respondent agreed with the interrogator’s
presupposition, including the negative bias.
2. “This is a job, if I don’t lose it, feeding my dog beans one at a time.” “Won’t itbubby?” “Yeah, I ain’t, I ain’t done any work here. [BNC #2941]
In Dialogue 2, the respondent should answer “No” in order for the phrase that follows (“Iain’t”) to be grammatically correct. However, the respondent answered “Yeah, I ain’t,” which isan affirmation followed by a negation. Therefore, the response “Yeah, I ain’t” is notgrammatically correct. From the point of view of communicative grammar, “won’t” has anintent of negation because it includes the meaning of refusal (Leech & Svartvik, 1977, P. 250).
Thus, the respondent’s “yeah” means that the respondent agreed with the presupposition of
the interrogator with a strong negative bias when the respondent recognized that thequestion has a negative bias in the interrogator’s presupposition.
3. “… and bring it all down and get one of these for your bedroom and keep it all in… started your homework yet, Lee?” “What?” “Started your homework yet?” “No.”“Didn’t you do it while I was out?” “Yeah, when you come in.” [BNC #365]
In the case of Dialogue 3, the context implies that the response “Yeah, when you come in”
means “no” even though the respondent responded with the positive word “yeah.” In addition,although the respondent was asked in the past tense “Didn’t you do it while I was out?,” theNobuko Harukawa

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respondent answered in the present tense, which is grammatically incorrect. Since therespondent has not finished his/her homework yet, the situation caused the respondent to be
uncertain as to whether he/she should answer “yes” or “no.” In this situation, the respondent
wanted to evade the question to avoid being scolded. The interrogator used a negative
question to give the presupposition that the homework should have been done. The negative
question shows that the expectation of the presupposition was true (Terakado & Sato, 2008, p.
85).
4.

“Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married.” “Right, so then you’d guessthat” “It was Saint Paul’s Cathedral.” “Right I … I’ve taken one of the more
obvious ones.” “You needn’t do that.” “Yeah, yeah, no.” [BNC #21]

In Dialogue 4, since the sentence “You needn’t do that” has no question mark, it seems
that this is not a question. However, this sentence is understood to be a declarative negative
yes/no question in this conversation because the respondent answered “Yeah, yeah, no,” whichmeans that the respondent first answered “Yeah, yeah” as agreement with the interrogator’s
statement, and then answered “No” as his/her real intention. When declarative questions areused with negation, “no” is expected (Leech & Svartvik, 1977, p. 184). Therefore, therespondent perceived a negative bias from this question.
5.

“Er, he’s not gonna give it to you twice, though is he, cos I don’t reckon he would
give it to you twice.” “What?” “Don’t you reckon?” “No he could, but he’s not gonna
want to.”[BNC #78]

In Dialogue 5, although the response “No” should grammatically be followed by anegative sentence, in this example, it is followed by an affirmative sentence. If “Don’t you
reckon? (which means “Don’t you think so?”) was asked about the statement “I don’t reckon hewould give it to you twice” (i.e., “I don’t think he would have given it to you twice”), thegrammatically correct response should have been “Yes, I do. (i.e., “I think so”) or “No, I don’t.
(i.e., “I don’t think so.”) If the respondent responded to the proposition “He would have given it
to you twice”, he/she should have answered “Yes he would” or “No, he wouldn’t.” However, therespondent answered “No” because he/she does not agree with “Don’t you reckon?” Then the
respondent said “He could” to express agreement about the proposition “He would have given
it to you twice.”
Imai and Nakajima (1978) explained from a pragmatic point of view that if a word or aphrase has contrastive stress and is focused on in yes/no questions, responses are formed byrepeating the same word or phrase (p. 84). Contrastive stress cannot be determined because
the sound sources were not found. However, if we were to suppose that the phrase “he would”
has contrastive stress and was focused on, then Dialogue 5 can be explained as a responseVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions in English

63

which is formed by repeating the phrase “he would” or by repeating with proper words thatare placed after yes/no. However, there are two problems with this interpretation. First, theonly question is “Don’t you reckon?” and the questioner’s presupposition is “You agree withwhat I don’t believe, that he would give it to you twice, don’t you?” (“Yes” is expected.)” “No he
could” is an unacceptable answer according to prescriptive grammar. The other problem isthat the person who transcribed this script in BNC forgot to insert a comma or a period
between the two words such as “No” and “he”. Perhaps the transcriber recognized the
response “No he could,” as a set of words so bundled up together that he/she felt that there
was no need for a comma or a period between “No” and “he.” Like 1, 3, and 4 above, many
commas and periods were found in responses that enabled yes/no to be an independent word
because the transcriber believed that yes/no should be recorded as an independent word and a
response.
Let us now analyze the response “No.” The purpose of the sentence “Don’t you reckon” isto confirm an affirmation, and it has the equivalent meaning of the question “You agree withme that you don’t think he would give it to you twice, don’t you?” The expected answer is “Yes.”(Terakado & Sato, 2008, p. 82) The respondent responded to a negative bias in theinterrogator’s presupposition because the respondent was asked “Don’t you reckon?” Theanswer was “No” because the respondent responded to the interrogator’s presupposition that
included a negative bias. This situation often occurs in active conversation. The respondent
responded not to the proposition but to the presupposition. This is very similar to theJapanese communication style.
6. John: I’ll be darned! We’ve run out of gas! Sally: And it’s dark and it’s snowing.
No one’ll be coming along at this time of night. John: No. Tom’s coming to theparty, so he’ll be coming this way. [Fukasawa, 2000]
Although Dialogue 6 has no question mark, when Sally said “No one’ll be coming along at
this time of night,” it caused John to answer, so this sentence is similar to a negative yes/noquestion. “No” was the response, even though “Yes” would have been the grammaticallycorrect answer. Because a question using the negative determiner “No” has a strong negative
bias (Leech & Svartvik, 1998, p. 424), the respondent emphasized a strong negative bias byusing the word “No.”This is the same as Japanese rules, in which the respondent responds to thepresupposition, so it is a deviation from English rules.
7. KING: When I’m awake. Fame. One other thing. Last question. Not many people
can say that, that they walk down the street and everybody knows that face.
HOPE: Yeah, it doesn’t help you. KING: It doesn’t? [LKL, June 1, 2003]

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In this dialog, “Not many people can say that, that they walk down the street andeverybody knows that face” is a question, even though it does not end in a question mark,because Larry King first said “last question.” From what the context indicates, the respondentshould have answered “No,” but he/she answered “Yeah.” The question “Not many people cansay that …” is the form of question which emphasizes a negation (Leech & Svartvik, 1998, p.
230). It seems that the respondent does not respond to the proposition “Many people can saythat everybody knows me” but to the negative statement “Not many people can say that …,”
and responded “Yeah” to mean “You are right.” This case is an instance in which the
respondent responded to a negative statement instead of responding to the proposition. So in
this case, it can be said that the response deviated from normal English grammar.
8. KING: We’re back with the first lady. Weren’t you quoted early on as saying you’dwant to spend as much time in Crawford as possible? BUSH: Yes.
KING: ... and they called you the quietest first lady since Bess Truman?
BUSH: Well, I was not quoted as saying I wanted to spend as much time in
Crawford as possible. [LKL, October 2, 2001]
In this dialog, the respondent denied the proposition “Weren’t you quoted early on as
saying you’d want to spend as much time in Crawford as possible” because of a sentenceappearing later on that clearly denies the proposition made by the interrogator. However, therespondent responded “Yes.” What does the word “Yes” refer to in this case? The meaning of“Yes” in this dialog could have simply been a pause filler which served the function of saying“I am paying attention to you” (Leech & Svartvik, 1998, p. 24). Because the respondent was
the First Lady of the United States at the time, she listened to the interrogator carefully, kept
the basic rules of conversation and etiquette and maintained her dignity as the First Lady.
Therefore, I think that she probably uttered “Yes” while back channeling calmly to indicate“I’m listening” or “Please go on” because Larry King sometimes throws tricky questions which
put the respondents in trouble with negative information to reveal the respondent’s real
intention. I regret that no sound sources were obtained from this data. This “Yes” wasprobably pronounced with a high rising intonation, which means “Is it right?” or a low risingintonation, which means “Please continue talking” (Otaka, 1998, p. 189).
9.

KING: Don’t you -- in your heart, you want to win? WILKINSON: No. Well, I
want to win, but it’s a lottery and everybody knows it’s a lottery, and who knows
which name is going to come out of the hat. [LKL, June 1, 2003]

In Dialogue 9, the respondent showed clearly his/her real intention after answering “No.”He/she believed that it was not very likely that he/she would win. Therefore, the respondent
answered “No” even though “Yes” would have corresponded with his/her real intention

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because he/she had little confidence that he/she would win.
It was found that there were nine examples of conversations in which English native
speakers did not respond according to the rules of English grammar. These examples from
corpora and from a textbook make it clear that native speakers of English sometimes use
sentences that do not follow prescriptive grammar rules when they answer negative questions
in normal conversations. Therefore, the hypothesis “English native speakers respond tonegative questions with sentences that are not grammatically correct in their conversations”
has been demonstrated to be true. It was found that there are some English yes/no questions
which were not answered with yes/no to the given proposition, but instead to theinterrogator’s presupposition. This irregular method of responding to negative questions issimilar to the Japanese method of responding.
The results of Dialogs 1 to 7 above show that irregular responses occurred when native
speakers responded to negative yes/no questions which have a negative bias as apresupposition. Most cases of negative questions were questions that have an affirmative bias
(Imai & Nakajima, 1978, p. 84 - 85). There were very few cases of negative questions that hada negative bias. A negative question with a negative bias can affect one’s value judgment. It
seems that a negation expresses a lie, an inconsistency, an irony, or a falsehood, and affects aperson’s emotions (Horn 1989, Takahara 2003a).
The way that people respond to negative questions in English is fundamentally different
from that in Japanese (Leech & Svartvik, 1977, p. 187). However, many examples were foundof English responses in which the respondent answered to an interrogator’s presupposition,
which is similar to the Japanese way of answering negative questions.
In English, conversations consist of various rules which deviate from English grammar,
and these rules are common rules which native speakers share (Milroy, 1998, p.98), eventhough these rules seem to be errors in term of prescriptive grammar.
I showed the above nine samples to English native speakers, and they asserted to me thatthese dialogs are not strange and the respondent responded to the interrogator’s
presupposition. They understood naturally that the way to respond to English negative
questions is not only to respond to the proposition, but also sometimes to respond to theinterrogators’ presupposition, which is similar to the Japanese way of replying.
Milroy (1998) explained that the rules of mental grammar are obeyed naturally among
adult English native speakers without their self-consciousness knowledge, even though theserules are not written in grammar books. Therefore, these results show that conversations
among English native speakers cannot always be explained by the rules of prescriptive
grammar. Instead, it is important for second language learners of English to learn grammar
rules by observing natural conversations instead of memorizing prescriptive grammar rules(p. 98 - 99).

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From these results, we can see that conversations by native English speakers cannot
always be examined by prescriptive grammar rules. This is because native English speakers
also consider people’s thoughts, opinions, and situations when participating in a conversation.
５．

Conclusion

In this study, we found nine examples of irregular responses among corpora of natural
English conversations. By analyzing these irregular responses from the viewpoint ofcommunication, many English negative yes/no questions were found which were answeredwith neither “yes” nor “no” to the given proposition, but instead, as an answer to theinterrogator’s presupposition. Also, it was revealed that irregular responses occurred when
native speakers responded to negative yes/no questions which had a negative bias.
English negative yes/no questions never have a neutral presupposition. Instead, thepresupposition of negative yes/no questions is always biased either affirmatively or negatively.
The answer to negative English yes/no questions is usually an answer to the proposition, notto the presupposition. However, some responses were found in which the respondents
answered to the interrogator’s presupposition, which is similar to the Japanese way of
responding to negative yes/no questions.
The interrogator’s presupposition might semantically appear in the sentences. For
example, questions with negative words such as “Haven’t you done your homework yet?” havea negative bias (Leech & Svartvik, 1998, p. 187). However, in some cases, the interrogator’s
presupposition is not expressed directly and can only be determined from the context.
So it turns out that sometimes, Japanese and English are similar in terms of the way torespond to negative yes/no questions because English speakers may answer the interrogator’s
presupposition based on the interrogator’s presupposition, although Japanese and English
differ in whether or not the presupposition is semantically expressed.
Although these responses at first seem to be grammatical mistakes and irregularresponses, they are the result of the respondents’ adjustments that are made according to theinterrogator’s presupposition. It can be said that the interrogator’s presupposition is “people’svalues” (Terakado & Sato, 2008, p. 97). In a natural conversation, the respondent’s responses
are affected by the interrogator’s values. The capability of adjusting to value judgments while
proceeding in a conversation is a communicational ability which is a common set of rules
which adult native speakers have unconscious knowledge of.
A topic which I will conduct future research is the analysis of negative propositions. I alsoplan to include more data corpora, such as Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA) and movie transcripts. In addition, I plan to investigate the effects of politeness andpragmatics (e.g., locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts).

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Corpora:CorporaBritish National Corpus
WordbanksOnline
Larry King Live corpus