Date:  Mon, 23 Oct 1995 08:57:31 -0700

From:  Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: statements spoken as if it were a question



The best I've seen in literature on this is Anne Rice's _Taltos_, p3,

with the character of Mary Jane: "I stood over there, 'cross the street,

and looked at your party?" Her sentences kept going up on the end, though

they weren't questions, as though she was always asking for a nod or a

word of agreement.

 Then, for the rest of the book, every once in a while you'll hit some

dialogue that is unattributed to a character, but since you see all of

the question marks on regular statements "We had bees, you know, on the

porch for honey? We could fish right off the back steps? We had fruit

trees all around the landing then, before the wisteria got them like a

giant boa constricter, you know, and blackberries?" I should have said

unattributed or not -- you always know when Mary Jane is talking.





On Sun, 22 Oct 1995, Natalie Maynor wrote:



> I thought we were talking about using question intonation in statements --

> e.g., I went to the movies last nIGHT. I saw this great movIE. (caps=

> rising pitch).

>  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)

>