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Example:

Aren't you going to the store?

Where I am from, the correct answer indicating I am going to the store is yes. The contraction "not" is ignored. Is this sort of confusion prevalent elsewhere?

I don't understand what is so complicated about my question here:

Is this sort of confusion prevalent elsewhere?

I am not asking for any of the answers provided here. They are all grand answers, but they have nothing to do with my question, which is is bold this time. I am not asking how to answer this sort of question. I am not asking what this sort of statement means. I am furthermore not asking for an opinion. If you don't understand how ignoring the adverb "not" is confusing, please don't answer. I am asking a very simple question; one desiring a very simple answer.

To reiterate, the confusion arises from the fact that the proper response of "yes" and "no" is reversed.

motoku
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    What confusion? I don't see any confusion… – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 04 '14 at 05:49
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    Just make sure this has not already been asked on these pages. – Kris Apr 04 '14 at 05:59
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    This topic must've come up dozens of times before. I'd expect that at least one of those threads would have a decent answer to this topic. -- Also, there's no possible "double-negation" going on in that example interrogative clause (though, maybe a response could have two negative thingies in it). Perhaps the OP is more interested in the difference between the two versions: "[Aren't vs Are] you going to the store?" and the possible difference in their responses. – F.E. Apr 04 '14 at 06:45
  • Can you give more details in your question. How is the correct answer 'yes', when we don't know whether you are really going to the store or not? – Mitch Apr 04 '14 at 13:17
  • This is an interesting related question:

    http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/161262/answering-a-negative-question-with-one-word/161269?noredirect=1#comment336712_161269

     – mjsqu Apr 04 '14 at 13:19
  • That is not the same as my question. I didn't ask how to answer that type of question. I asked how prevalent this sort of omission is. – motoku Apr 04 '14 at 16:55
  • In your edit, you mention a confusion a number of times. But you have not specified exactly what that confusion is. Describe the situation then give the utterances (the question and the expected answer given the situation) and then we might be able to tell you why English works that way. – Mitch Apr 05 '14 at 04:35

3 Answers3

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The uncontracted version of the question is "Are you not going to the store?" and the fully qualified answer would be "Yes, I am going to the store."

It's a common idiom, the "not" is not ignored; it's merely an invitation to refute or deny the proposition, but in a sort-of polite way (i.e. "I am not presuming or assuming that you are going to the store...").

The "not" version of a question is often preferred when the asker is not quite sure of the answer.

Jeffrey Kemp
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    There's also the rather pointed version of 'Aren't you going to the store?!' to which the usual answer might be 'When I'm ready.' The answer to the usual hedged version I'd give or expect would never be a bare 'Yes', but a disambiguating 'Yes, I am' or 'Yes; I've got to get some milk' or 'Yes – this afternoon' or ... – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '14 at 07:36
  • Be careful when speaking to the Japanese. They are inclined to answer these things absolutely literally. It is not uncommon to hear them say, in answer to such a question 'Yes, I'm not', or 'No, I am'. It is alright when they supply the disambiguation but they don't always do that. – WS2 Apr 04 '14 at 08:03
  • @WS2 Part of that may be that a usual Japanese 'no' in this instance would be いや (iya), which usually means 'nay, that statement is false'. – Bakabaka Apr 04 '14 at 08:17
  • @Bakabaka Yes, that is what I meant by a 'literal' answer. they will say yea or nay to the correctness of the statement, rather than to its underlying meaning. It's very logical. Our system must seem perverse to them. – WS2 Apr 04 '14 at 09:14
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Are you going to the store? might be said by someone who does not necessarily expect you to to be going there.

Aren't you going to the store? would be said by someone who does expect you to go there, and is possibly a little surprised that you haven't gone there already.

Terpsichore
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In English the polarity of the answer is not with respect to the question, it is with respect to the answer. Also, the two parts of the answer agree in polarity.

For example, If the question is "Aren't you going to the store?" there are two possible situations, that you are going to the store and you aren't going to the store. In English the responses for these two cases are:

  • Yes, I am going to the store.
  • No, I am not going to the store.

Note that the yes/no answer agrees with the positive or negative of the rest of the answer.

The two answers look the same if the question is "Are you going to the store?".

You may be wondering why this is so, because your own native language does things differently. I can only say that this just happens to be the way English does it.

As to which one to use "Are you...?" or "Aren't you...?", the first one is more direct, the pragmatics of the second one actually is usually in the instance where they are expected to go to the store but it looks like they are not and it sounds like a reminder.

Mitch
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