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Anonymous Posted 5 years ago
Grammar
Interrogative clause that isn't a question
Could you please stop smoking here.
Is the sentence above an interrogative clause, but not a question?
Top answer
It is question, and needs a question mark at the end.
- It is question, and needs a question mark at the end.
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2 Answers
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can and could questions are a way of encoding commands to make them more polite. You don't really want to know anything about the ability of a person to perform the requested action. You already know that he/she can/could perform that action. The other person also knows this.
So "Can you pass the salt?" just means "Pass the salt, please", but it's more polite.
CJ
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