What would be the appropriate question tag for the sentence
"They got the answers yesterday, ______?"
Is haven't they the correct question tag?
I would also like to know the different American and British style in answering this question.
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". . . , right?"– RobustoCommented Jul 24, 2015 at 13:20
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". . . , no?" (damn that 15-char limit!)– FumbleFingersCommented Jul 24, 2015 at 13:59
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1@Meelah's answer nails it. Since the auxiliary is all that shows up when using the rule of Tag-formation, an auxiliary is required. So if there isn't a handy auxiliary (as there isn't with They got the answers yesterday), another rule, called Do-support, supplies a dummy auxiliary do, suitably inflected (i.e, here it's did) for you to negate, contract to didn't, and invert with the subject. Do-support do has no meaning; it's just a cogwheel in the syntactic machinery.– John LawlerCommented Jul 24, 2015 at 15:11
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so if i say "They got the answers yersterday, haven't they".. am i correct...– Christy JosephCommented Jul 24, 2015 at 15:54
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1I think your confusion comes from the fact that in some dialects of American English (particularly AAVE and many southern dialects), got is used colloquially as a shortened form of have got in the sense have; so to @Mari-Lou’s examples, we can add 3) “We got a house” (AmE only). The tag questions would be: (BrE) 1) “…haven’t we?” or “…don’t we?”, 2) “…haven’t we?” — (AmE) 1) and 2) “…don’t we?” (or “…haven’t we?”, but that’s more formal), 3) “…don’t we?”– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Jul 25, 2015 at 19:12
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1 Answer
Answering from Ireland. I would say "They got the answers yesterday, didn't they?", 'did' referring to 'got', meaning 'they did get'.
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3Ditto from England. "They got the answers yesterday, didn't they [get them]?", Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 13:05
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3Yep, perfectly fine and idiomatic in the US as well. (There must be something subversive afoot if everyone agrees.) Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 17:37