Definite questioning

[Johnyxxx]

Hello,

I would like to ask if to be definitely questioning means to make it sound like a definite question. (her inflection was too faint to make the end of the sentence sound like a definite question but one could clearly see she wanted one to respond to it) Can anybody help me?



She waited for one of us to make some comment, but Anne shook her head at me and we kept silent. ”You must have seen how it was by our footprints . . . She was walking along like a person who was absolutely uninjured.“ The inflection in her voice at the end of that sentence was too faint to be definitely questioning, but I knew that she expected one of us to reply. And with that knowledge I suddenly became curious as to why, exactly, she wanted us to speak. Did she expect some approbation for her caution in going part way home with Mrs Marcy? Or—and I could not see where this thought led—did she want us to admit that we had seen the footprints?

William Sloane, Edge of Running Water, 1939.


Thanks a lot.

 

[emsr2d2]

It was too faint for the hearer to be sure that it was meant as a question. Your use of "definite question" isn't natural.

I couldn't tell if it was a definite question. :cross:
I couldn't tell if it was definitely a question. :tick:

 

[Tdol]

To be clearly a question