Talk:Yes/no question

:The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Every participant in this move discussion prefers the proposed title to the current title. (closed by non-admin page mover) feminist🩸 (talk) 14:03, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

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:Yes–no question → {{no redirect|Yes/no question}} – [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=yes%E2%80%93no+question%2C%5Byes+%2F+no+question%5D&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true NGrams is quite clear] on which form is more common, at least if I managed not to input any arithmetic expressions by mistake, which I'm pretty sure I avoided.

Per {{slink|WP:MOS#Other uses for en dashes}}:

{{btq|[En dashes] may also separate components less strongly than a slash would. Consider the relationship that exists between two components when deciding what punctuation to place between them.}}

It's clear to me that "yes" and "no" should be separated more strongly than with an en dash. Now for the relevant parts of MOS:SLASH:

{{btq|Generally, avoid joining two words with a slash ... because it suggests that the words are related without specifying how. Replace with clearer wording.}}

That doesn't apply here, as it's very clear how the words are related.

{{btq|In circumstances involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash (see above) is usually preferable to the slash: {{xt|the digital–analog distinction}}.}}

Digital and analog cameras both look a lot like cameras, etc. etc. Softening the distinction between analog and digital is important because they are not quite the epitome of total logical opposites.

{{btq|An unspaced slash may be used ... in an expression or abbreviation widely used outside Wikipedia (e.g., {{xt|n/a}} or {{xt|N/A}} for not applicable).}}

That clearly applies here, see above. Also see Input/output for a relevant, illustrative example happily existing out in the wild. Remsense ‥ 论 23:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Note: WikiProject Linguistics has been notified of this discussion. Remsense ‥ 论 23:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• Your logic makes sense, although a quick glance at the linguistic texts I have at hand seems to suggest that yes-no is preferred over yes/no. More thoughts later when I have more time. -- LWG ^talk 00:53, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Oh! Would you mind pointing me to some when you do get a chance? Thanks in advance! Remsense ‥ 论 00:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Hm, I'd actually propose that it be moved to Polar question, because the article is not only about English, and that seems to me like the most term in the cross-linguistic literature (I have some notes somewhere about a possible split of Yes and no for the same reason, though that is more complex). Otherwise I do prefer the slash more than the dash. //Replayful (talk | contribs) 07:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Oh, even more interesting! I'm of two minds about this, given this is both very much a scholarly topic and one easily accessible by the public. If it's as you and LWG say, I'm happy to adopt the scholarly terminology ofc Remsense ‥ 论 09:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::To provide some examples/sources that matter to me: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/language-typology-and-syntactic-description/speech-act-distinctions-in-grammar/B322EE6E9CA540ED36D1F9FF68C3FEC0 König & Siemund 2007] use "polar question" (to refer to the function as polar question; polar interrogative is the form, which is more in focus there). The World Atlas of Language Structures also [https://wals.info/chapter/116 has a chapter] about it under the term "polar question" (for some reason, Grambank uses 'polar interrogation' which I have never heard about before). Of course it's not possible to compare with "yes/no-question" in terms of frequency since we can't easily count when it's used about English, some other language or more generally. However, there is a lot of variation in the scholarly terminology around this (the many different approaches in linguistics), which makes it difficult to conclude about agreement. I think "polar question" avoids an Anglophone bias, and makes it possible to have an article on the phenomena in general as separate from an article on "polar questions in English (i.e. yes/no questions; I have the impression there's stuff enough to build on article on about it). //Replayful (talk | contribs) 22:38, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Ok so my initial reply was based on grabbing the first couple of books dealing with semantics/syntax that I had readily on hand to see what the author used, and it was {{xt|yes-no}}. On further investigation, it appears that both are used in linguistics literature, and it seems to vary by author. For example, the [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Interrogativity/bZ2J9Pr_5i0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=yes-no first source] cited in this article is a compilation of works on the subject by 8 different linguists, 5 of whom exclusively use {{ex|yes-no}}, 2 of whom exclusively use {{xt|yes/no}}, and one of whom uses both. The [https://archive.org/details/threadofdiscours0000grim/page/66/mode/2up?q=%22yes-no%22 second source] cited uses {{ex|yes-no}} exclusively, the [https://archive.org/details/intonation0000crut/mode/2up?q=yes+no third source] uses {{ex|yes/no}}. A quick grep of my linguistics library finds plenty of both uses. To the option of Polar question, even though I do see that used, my genral impression is that yes/no is still more widely used even in publications about non-English languages. So on the whole I would say that moving to {{ex|yes/no}} loses us nothing in adherence to linguistic conventions, kicking the question back to one of style, where I think Remsense's reasoning makes sense. So I guess where I land is sure, move it - reversion is cheap if we later realize it was a bad idea. -- LWG ^talk 17:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Lean support per nom and thoughtful discussion above. Yes/no and yes–no are substantially equivalent minor variants, and Remsense provides a good basis for preferring the slash for our purposes. If both yes*no question and polar question are widely used in scholarly sources and are treated as synonymous or near-synonymous, as our article does, it makes sense to stick with a version of yes*no, which is far more common and recognizable to a general audience. Looking at other Ngrams, [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=yes–no+question%2C%5Byes+%2F+no+question%5D%2Cpolar+question%2Cyes–no+questions%2C%5Byes+%2F+no+questions%5D%2Cpolar+questions&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3 this] and [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=yes%2Fno+question%2C+polar+question%2C+binary+question%2C+general+question&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 this] also lend support to Yes/no question.--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:58, 3 June 2025 (UTC)