Echo Answer

In linguistics, an echo answer or echo response is a way of answering a polar question without using words for yes and no. The verb used in the question is simply echoed in the answer, negated if the answer has a negative truth-value. For examples:

  • "Did you go to the cinema?" (or "Didn't you go to the cinema?")
  • "I did not." or "I didn't go."

Read more about Echo Answer:  Finnish, Celtic Languages, Latin, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese

Famous quotes containing the words echo and/or answer:

    To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking—and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.
    Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)

    Inspector Clouseau: How can a blind man be a lookout?
    Chief Inspector Dreyfus: How can an idiot be a policeman? Answer me that!
    Inspector Clouseau: It’s very simple. All he has to do is enlist.
    Blake Edwards (b. 1922)