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# 26. Questions

French asks a question in three ways, and the choice between them is a matter of register more than of meaning:

- **intonation alone**, with the order of a statement: *Tu viens ?*;
- **the marker *est-ce que*** before a statement: *Est-ce que tu viens ?*;
- **inversion of the subject**, the subject pronoun after the verb and joined to it by a hyphen: *Viens-tu ?*

Questions with a question word (*qui, que, quoi, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien, quel, lequel*) use the same three patterns and a fourth that leaves the question word where the answer would stand: *Tu vas où ?* Speech uses intonation, *est-ce que* and the question word in place; writing uses inversion and *est-ce que*. This chapter gives the yes/no questions, the questions with a question word, the long forms *qu'est-ce que, qui est-ce qui*, the spoken forms, answers and sluices, indirect questions, and the UD analysis, with counts from a treebank made only of questions and from the spoken treebanks. The interrogative pronouns and determiners are listed in the pronouns and determiners chapters; the order of clitics under inversion in chapter 21.

Contents:

1. Overview and counts
2. Yes/no questions by intonation
3. *Est-ce que*
4. Inversion
5. Questions with a question word
6. *Qu'est-ce que*, *qui est-ce qui* and the long forms
7. The question word in place, and the spoken forms
8. Answers, sluices and fragments
9. Indirect questions
10. Exclamatives and rhetorical questions
11. The UD analysis
12. How Mova handles it
13. Sources

---

## 1. Overview and counts

| pattern | yes/no | with a question word | register |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| intonation | *Tu viens ?* | % *Où tu vas ?* | speech |
| word in place | — | % *Tu vas où ?* | speech, very common |
| *est-ce que* | *Est-ce que tu viens ?* | *Où est-ce que tu vas ?* | all registers |
| simple inversion (pronoun subject) | *Viens-tu ?* | *Où vas-tu ?* | writing, formal speech |
| complex inversion (noun subject + pronoun) | *Marie vient-elle ?* | *Où Marie va-t-elle ?* | writing |
| simple inversion of a noun subject | — | *Où va Marie ?* | writing, some speech |

How the treebanks' questions are made (sentences ending in *?*, UD 2.18, counted 2026-11-06; a sentence with *est-ce* is counted there, one with an inverted pronoun and no *est-ce* under inversion, and one with neither and no question word under intonation):

| treebank | questions | *est-ce* | inversion | with a question word (first word / later) | intonation only |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| FQB (written questions) | 2 228 | 155 | 510 | 1 671 (1 283 / 388) | 510 |
| GSD (written) | 298 | 25 | 129 | 151 (81 / 70) | 52 |
| Sequoia (written) | 47 | 2 | 26 | 30 (23 / 7) | 10 |
| ParisStories (spoken) | 145 | 25 | 1 | 21 (2 / 19) | 108 |
| Rhapsodie (spoken) | 182 | 41 | 20 | 47 (12 / 35) | 86 |

The written questions use inversion; the spoken ones almost never do (one inversion in the 145 questions of ParisStories) and put the question word later than the first word — in place, or after a dislocated phrase or a discourse word (*le gagnant du concours, il avait quoi ?*). FQB is the French QuestionBank converted to UD: 2 289 questions, most of them translations of the English TREC question sets, with government FAQs and CLEF questions (FQB README). It is written, edited French and shows the written norm.

## 2. Yes/no questions by intonation

A statement with a rising final pitch is a question; in writing it is marked only by the question mark: *Tu as faim ? Il est parti ?* This is the normal yes/no question of conversation: 108 of the 145 questions of ParisStories have neither *est-ce que*, inversion nor a question word. It can carry a dislocated topic: *Il a été tiré, le signal d'alarme ?*

A declarative question is not neutral in every context: with a negation it expects agreement (*Tu ne viens pas ?* "Aren't you coming?"), and with *alors, donc* it asks for confirmation of an inference (*Tu pars, alors ?*).

Questions by intonation are hard to find in a transcript without the audio. A study that classified questions in two spoken corpora into spontaneous and prepared ones (interviews against conversation) first had to set out criteria for what counts as a question at all in a transcription — the question mark of the transcriber, the question word, the marker, the inversion, the context — and obtained its best results among the traditional classifiers with a logistic regression combined with these linguistic criteria (taravella-2022).

## 3. *Est-ce que*

*Est-ce que* (before a vowel *est-ce qu'*) turns any statement into a question without changing its order:

> **fr-ud-dev_00427** · UD French GSD « Est-ce qu'il y a un poème ce matin ? *is-it that there has a poem this morning* — "Is there a poem this morning?"

It is used in all registers, from speech (25 of the 145 ParisStories questions, 41 of 182 in Rhapsodie) to careful prose. It is frozen: it does not agree, does not change tense (**était-ce que* is not a question marker) and is pronounced as one word, /ɛskə/. It is obligatory with *je* for most verbs, where inversion is impossible: *Est-ce que je cours ?*, not **Cours-je ?* (fraser-1921 notes that the inverted first person singular "is avoided in most verbs, and must be avoided in some").

**In UD** *est-ce que* is not one word: *Est* is `AUX` `cop`, *-ce* `PRON` `expl:subj`, *qu'* `SCONJ` `mark`, all three attached to the main predicate of the question (in fr-ud-dev_00427 to *a*). The analysis keeps the history of the marker (literally "is it that …") in the tree.

## 4. Inversion

**Simple inversion of a pronoun.** The subject clitic (*je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles, ce*) follows the finite verb, with a hyphen: *Viens-tu ? Avez-vous fini ? Peut-on entrer ? Est-ce vrai ?* In a compound tense it follows the auxiliary: *As-tu mangé ?* Between a verb ending in a vowel and *il, elle, on*, a /t/ is written *-t-*: *Va-t-il venir ? Parle-t-elle anglais ? A-t-on vendu …?*

> **fr-ud-dev_00602** · UD French GSD Va-t-il se circonscrire à cette seule matière ? *goes-t-he REFL confine-INF to this single subject* — "Will he confine himself to this one subject?"

With *je*, inversion survives in a few verbs and set forms: *Puis-je … ? Suis-je … ? Dois-je … ? Ai-je … ? Sais-je … ? Que sais-je ?* (*Puis-je* is the only inverted form of *pouvoir* in the first person: **Peux-je*).

**Complex inversion of a noun subject.** A noun subject stays before the verb and a pronoun agreeing with it follows the verb:

> **fr-ud-dev_01214** · UD French GSD Le renouveau désiré se produira-t-il ? *the renewal desired REFL will-produce-t-it* — "Will the hoped-for renewal come about?"

> **FQB_CLEF03-9** · UD French FQB Où Richard Zwetchkenbaum travaille-t-il ? "Where does Richard Zwetchkenbaum work?"

A noun subject cannot simply follow the verb in a yes/no question: **Vient Marie ?*

**Simple inversion of a noun subject** is possible after a question word other than *pourquoi*, when the verb has nothing after it: *Où va ce train ? Que veut ton frère ? Comment s'appelle ta sœur ? Quand arrive le train ?* It is not possible with *pourquoi* (**Pourquoi part ton frère ?* — *Pourquoi ton frère part-il ?*), nor when the verb has an object after it (**Où achète Marie ses livres ?*), nor in yes/no questions.

**Negation under inversion.** *Ne* stands before the verb and its clitics, the subject pronoun after the verb, *pas* after the subject pronoun: *Ne viens-tu pas ? N'a-t-il pas compris ? Ne le lui as-tu pas dit ?* (chapter 27).

**In UD.** The inverted pronoun is a separate token beginning with a hyphen (*-tu*, *-t-il*, *-vous*), `PRON`, lemma the plain pronoun. It is `nsubj` when it is the only subject and `expl:subj` when a noun subject is also present: in fr-ud-dev_01214 *renouveau* is `nsubj` and *-t-il* `expl:subj`. FQB has 336 hyphenated pronouns as `nsubj` (simple inversion) and 330 as `expl:subj` (complex inversion); GSD 155 and 88 (2026-11-06).

## 5. Questions with a question word

| question word | asks for | UD | example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| *qui* | a person (subject or object) | `PRON` `nsubj`/`obj` | *Qui est venu ? Qui vois-tu ?* |
| *que* (*qu'*), object, before the verb | a thing | `PRON` `obj` | *Que veux-tu ?* |
| *quoi* (strong form: after a preposition, alone, in place) | a thing | `PRON` | *De quoi parles-tu ? Tu veux quoi ? Quoi ?* |
| *où* | a place | `ADV` `advmod`, `obl:arg` | *Où vas-tu ? D'où viens-tu ?* |
| *quand* | a time | `ADV` `advmod` | *Quand part-il ?* |
| *comment* | a manner; a predicate | `ADV` `advmod`, `xcomp` | *Comment ça marche ? Comment est-il ?* |
| *pourquoi* | a reason | `ADV` `advmod` | *Pourquoi riez-vous ?* |
| *combien (de)* | a quantity | `ADV` | *Combien coûte-t-il ? Combien de temps reste-t-il ?* |
| *quel, quelle, quels, quelles* | a choice (determiner or predicate) | `DET` `det`; predicate of *être* | *Quel livre lis-tu ? Quelle est la date ?* |
| *lequel, laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles* | a choice among known ones | `PRON` | *Lequel préfères-tu ?* |

In FQB the commonest are *quel/quelle* as determiners (508), *qui* as subject (264), *quand* (156), *qu'* as the root of a *qu'est-ce que* question (152), *où* (187), *que* as object (70), *combien* as object (65), *comment* (90). In GSD the question words (`PronType=Int`) are led by *comment* 50, *quel* 46, *pourquoi* 35, *que* 28, *qui* 23, *où* 17, *quoi* 13 (2026-11-06).

**A preposition goes with its question word**: *À qui parles-tu ? Avec quoi l'as-tu ouvert ? Pour quelle compagnie Marty McKewon travaille-t-il ?* (FQB_CLEF03-7). Stranding is impossible (**Qui parles-tu à ?*). *Pendant combien de temps Mark Kauffman a-t-il travaillé pour le magazine Life ?* (FQB_CLEF03-3) shows the whole prepositional phrase fronted, with complex inversion.

**The same question in four registers**:

| form | example | where |
| --- | --- | --- |
| question word + inversion | *Où vas-tu ?* | writing, formal speech |
| question word + *est-ce que* | *Où est-ce que tu vas ?* | all registers |
| question word + statement order | % *Où tu vas ?* | speech |
| question word in place | % *Tu vas où ?* | speech, very common |

**Infinitive questions** ask what to do and belong to writing and to titles: *Que faire ? Où aller ? Comment remédier aux contradictions et au désarroi des relations humaines ?* (fr-ud-dev_00233).

**Questions out of a subject.** A question can extract the complement of a noun: *De quel livre as-tu lu la préface ?* Extracting the complement of a subject noun (*De quel philosophe le portrait se trouve-t-il au Louvre ?*) is rated clearly worse by speakers than extracting the complement of an object, while the same extraction is acceptable in relative clauses (abeille-2019-extracting; chapter 25, §5): the constraint depends on the construction, not only on the syntax.

## 6. *Qu'est-ce que*, *qui est-ce qui* and the long forms

With *qui* and *que* the long forms with *est-ce* show both the kind of referent and its function:

|  | subject | object |
| --- | --- | --- |
| a person | *Qui est-ce qui vient ?* | *Qui est-ce que tu vois ?* |
| a thing | *Qu'est-ce qui se passe ?* | *Qu'est-ce que tu veux ?* |

The first part (*qui* / *que*) says person or thing; the last part (*qui* / *que*) subject or object. *Que* alone cannot be a subject: "What happens?" is *Qu'est-ce qui se passe ?* or *Que se passe-t-il ?*, never **Que se passe ?* The short subject *qui* is the only one for persons (*Qui vient ?*). The long forms are the ordinary spoken questions for "what": *qu'est-ce qui t'est arrivé ?* (ParisStories_2020_blessureRecreation_20), *qu'est-ce qu'il s'est passé ?* (ParisStories_2020_blessureRecreation_13).

***Qu'est-ce que c'est (que)*** asks for a definition: *Qu'est-ce que c'est ? Qu'est-ce qu'une aide au logement ?* (FQB_CAF-1).

**In UD GSD** *Qu'est-ce qui va augmenter ?* (fr-ud-dev_00325) is analysed as a cleft: *Qu'* is the root, *est* its `cop`, *-ce* its `expl:subj`, and the rest an `advcl:cleft` with *qui* as its subject. FQB analyses the noun phrase after *qu'est-ce que* in a definition question as `dislocated` (139 times; chapter 20, §8). Two treebanks, two trees for the same construction.

## 7. The question word in place, and the spoken forms

**In place.** Spoken French leaves the question word where the answer would be: % *Tu vas où ? Tu fais quoi ? Il arrive quand ? Ça coûte combien ? C'est qui ?* In ParisStories 19 of the 21 questions with a question word have it after the first word: *tu as fait comment ?* (ParisStories_2020_anecdoteMetro_5), *ensuite, euh après, il s'est passé quoi ?* (ParisStories_2020_descenteCanoe_32), *ah ouais c'est combien ?* (ParisStories_2019_voyageItalie_20). The question word in place is not an echo question: it asks for new information, with a final rise or a fall.

***Que* becomes *quoi*.** The clitic *que* can stand only before the verb; in place, after a preposition and alone, the strong form *quoi* is used: *Tu fais quoi ? De quoi tu parles ? Quoi ?* The same holds in sluices (§8).

**Other spoken forms**, all avoided in writing:

- *c'est que* after the question word: % *Où c'est que tu vas ? Qui c'est qui a dit ça ?*;
- *que* after the question word: % *Où que tu vas ? Comment qu'il a fait ?* (familiar, regional);
- in Québec, the particle *-tu* (from the *-t-il* of inversion) marks a yes/no question with any subject: % *Tu viens-tu ? C'est-tu correct ?* (see the varieties chapter);
- a dislocated subject with the question word in place: *le gagnant du concours, il avait quoi ?* (ParisStories_2020_concoursInstagram_22).

## 8. Answers, sluices and fragments

***Oui, non, si.*** *Oui* answers a positive question; *si* contradicts a negative one; *non* denies either:

> — Tu viens ? — **Oui.** / **Non.** — Tu ne viens pas ? — **Si.** / **Non.**

These particles also occur in embedded clauses: *Je crois que oui. Il dit que non. J'espère que si.* An analysis of the embedded uses argues that the particles are what remains of an elided clause rather than words that stand for a whole proposition: in embedded positions they are sensitive to finiteness, to obviation and to antilogophoricity (the restriction on who may hold the attitude) exactly as a full clause would be (pasquereau-2020).

**Short answers** are fragments: *— Où vas-tu ? — À Paris.* A confirmation does not repeat the auxiliary as in English: *— Tu l'as vu ? — Oui (je l'ai vu)*, not **Oui, j'ai*.

**Sluicing.** A question word alone can stand for a whole question recovered from the context: *Il a vu quelqu'un, mais je ne sais pas qui. — Il est parti. — Quand ?* Two French facts:

- for "what", only ***quoi*** is possible in a sluice (*Il a acheté quelque chose, mais je ne sais pas quoi*), never *que*; an analysis of these *quoi*-sluices argues that the sluice still has a full question structure, and that the form *que* is excluded because the ellipsis removes the context that would select it (gotowski-2022);
- a preposition can be **omitted** in a sluice: *Il a parlé à quelqu'un, mais je ne sais pas (à) qui*. In two acceptability experiments, sluices without the preposition were acceptable with both *à* and *de*, depending on the type of remnant, and in a written corpus the version without the preposition was the preferred one, as in English — although French does not strand prepositions, which theories had linked to the omission (hassen-2025).

## 9. Indirect questions

An indirect question is the complement of a verb such as *demander, se demander, savoir, dire, ignorer, comprendre*. It keeps the order of a statement, with no inversion and no *est-ce que*:

- a yes/no question takes ***si***: *Je me demande s'il viendra.* (*si* elides only before *il, ils*: *s'il*, but *si elle*);
- a question word as in a direct question: *Dis-moi où tu vas. Je ne sais pas quand il part. Il se demande pourquoi elle est partie.*;
- *qu'est-ce qui* → ***ce qui***, *qu'est-ce que* / *que* → ***ce que***: *Je ne sais pas ce qui se passe. Dis-moi ce que tu veux.*;
- an infinitive with a question word: *Je ne sais pas quoi faire, où aller.*

The tenses follow the sequence of tenses (chapter 24, §7): *Il m'a demandé si je venais.* After *si* "whether" the future and the conditional are normal (*Je me demande s'il viendrait*), unlike after *si* "if".

In speech the direct order and forms leak into the indirect question: % *Je sais pas qu'est-ce que tu veux*; *vous savez pourquoi le signal d'alarme il a été tiré ?* (ParisStories), with a dislocated subject inside the indirect question.

**In UD** the indirect question is `ccomp` of the governing verb, *si* is `mark`, and a question word keeps its role inside the clause.

## 10. Exclamatives and rhetorical questions

**Exclamatives** use *que, comme, qu'est-ce que* (spoken) and *quel*: *Que c'est beau ! Comme il est grand ! Qu'est-ce qu'il est bête !* (spoken), *Quel beau temps !* The degree word stands first, without inversion; *quel* agrees with its noun. *Combien* is literary in exclamations.

**Rhetorical questions** have the form of a question and the force of an assertion: *Qui l'aurait cru ?* "Who would have believed it?" — nobody. A negative rhetorical question asserts the positive: *N'est-ce pas évident ?* *N'est-ce pas* is also the tag question of formal French (*Il est parti, n'est-ce pas ?*); speech uses *hein ?, non ?, quoi ?*.

## 11. The UD analysis

| construction | analysis in GSD |
| --- | --- |
| inverted pronoun, sole subject | `PRON` with hyphen, `nsubj` of the verb |
| inverted pronoun after a noun subject | `PRON` with hyphen, `expl:subj`; the noun is `nsubj` |
| *est-ce que* (yes/no) | *est* `cop`, *-ce* `expl:subj`, *qu'* `mark`, all on the main predicate |
| *qu'est-ce qui / que* | a cleft: *qu'* the root, *est* `cop`, *-ce* `expl:subj`, the rest `advcl:cleft` |
| question words | `PronType=Int`, in their clause role (`nsubj`, `obj`, `advmod`, `det`) |
| indirect question | `ccomp`, *si* `mark` |

There is no feature or relation for "this sentence is a question": the question mark, the hyphenated pronoun after the verb, `PronType=Int` and the *est-ce* tokens are the evidence. Note that `PronType=Int` is on the word; ParisStories and Rhapsodie use the same feature for the spoken question words.

## 12. How Mova handles it

**What is done.** `en xpos-fill` maps the question words to `WP`, `WDT`, `WRB` from `PronType=Int` and an inverted pronoun to `PRP`; the parser learns the French attachments from the GSD trees. Traces of the parser trained on the GSD training file (`en explain`, 12 epochs, beam 8, CPU, 2026-11-06):

| question | what Mova gives |
| --- | --- |
| *Qui a pris le livre ?* | right: *Qui* `nsubj`, *a* `aux`, *livre* `obj` |
| *Où vas-tu ?* | half right: *Où* `advmod`, but *vas-tu* is one token (the root), so the subject is lost |
| *Est-ce que tu viens ?* | half right: *viens* the root with *tu* `nsubj` and *que* `mark`; *Est-ce* is one token, an `obl` |
| *Qu'est-ce que tu veux ?* | half right: *veux* the root with *tu* `nsubj`; *Qu'est-ce* is one token, `mark`, with *que* as its `fixed`; the object is lost |
| *Que veux-tu ?* | wrong: *Que* is the root and *veux-tu* its `nsubj` |
| *Tu fais quoi ?* | wrong: *quoi* is a second `nsubj` of *fais* instead of its `obj` |
| *Tu vas où ?* | wrong: *Tu* the root, *vas* `flat`, *où* `punct` |
| *Quel livre lis-tu ?* | wrong: *livre* the root with *Quel* `det` and *lis-tu* an `nmod` |
| *Pierre est-il parti ?* | wrong: *Pierre* the root, *parti* an `appos` with *est-il* as its subject |
| *Je me demande s'il viendra.* | wrong: *s'il* one token, an `obj`; *viendra* `fixed` |
| *Il se demande pourquoi elle est partie.* | half right: the indirect question is the `obj` of *demande*, with *pourquoi* `advmod` and *elle* `nsubj`, but *partie* is read as the head of a copular clause |

The questions fail first in the tokenizer: the hyphenated inverted pronoun (*vas-tu, lis-tu, est-il*) and *est-ce* are kept whole by the English tokenizer, which has learned 1 994 hyphenated words from the training file and keeps a hyphenated word whole by default; and the elided *qu', s'* are joined to the next word. The questions with the word in place fail because the training file has few (70 non-initial question words in GSD).

**What is not done.**

- **The speech act.** Mova's pragmatics marks an English question from the English word order, *do*-support and the question mark. For French it has only the question mark: it does not read *est-ce que*, inversion, a question word in place or *n'est-ce pas* as marks of a question.
- **What is asked.** The frames reader does not know the French question words, so it does not know that *Tu vas où ?* asks for the place of *aller*; in English it fills the asked role from *where*.
- **Indirect questions** with *si, ce qui, ce que* are parsed (when parsed) as complement clauses and not marked as questions.
- **Sluices and answers.** *Si* as a positive answer to a negative question is not distinguished from *si* "if" and *si* "so"; a sluice is a fragment with no recovered question.
- **FQB** has not been used in any training run so far (chapter 20, §12); adding it would give the parser the inverted questions it lacks.

## 13. Sources

- Fraser, Squair & Coleman, *The New Fraser and Squair Complete French Grammar* (1921), on the first-person interrogative forms: `fraser-1921`.
- Seddah & Candito, *Hard Time Parsing Questions: Building a QuestionBank for French* (LREC 2016), as described in the UD_French-FQB README (the treebank's source; not held as a text).
- Winckel & Abeillé, *Extraction out of subject phrases in French: experimental evidence* (2019): `abeille-2019-extracting`.
- Pasquereau, *Polar response particles in French as remnants of ellipsis* (Glossa, 2020): `pasquereau-2020`.
- Gotowski, *Quoi-sluices in French* (Glossa, 2022): `gotowski-2022`.
- Hassen & Abeillé, *Preposition omission in French interrogative sluices: empirical findings and theoretical implications* (Glossa, 2025): `hassen-2025`.
- Eshkol-Taravella, Barbedette, Liu & Soumah, *Classification automatique de questions spontanées vs. préparées dans des transcriptions de l'oral* (TALN 2022): `taravella-2022`.
- UD French GSD, FQB, Sequoia, ParisStories, Rhapsodie, UD 2.18; sentences cited by `sent_id`; counts made with `awk` over the CoNLL-U files, 2026-11-06.
- Mova: [`en/src/main.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/) (`xpos_of`, `tok_eval`, `explain`), [`en/src/gram.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/), [`prag/src/frames.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/prag/).
- The full list is in [Sources](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/sources/).
- [← previous 25. Relative clauses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/25-relative-clauses/)
- [next → 27. Negation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/27-negation/)
- [↑ back to Modern Standard French (fr) — a reference manual for Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/)