Yes and no

For other uses, see Yes and no (disambiguation).

Yes and no are two words for expressing affirmatives and negatives respectively in English (e.g. "Are you hungry?" "Yes, I am."). Early Middle English had a four-form system, but Modern English has reduced this to a two-form system consisting of 'yes' and 'no'. Some languages do not answer yes-no questions with single words meaning 'yes' or 'no'. At least one, Welsh, is widely but erroneously believed to have no words for yes and no. In fact it has, these being but one of the many ways in which yes-no questions are answered in Welsh. Welsh and Finnish are among several languages that employ echo answers rather than words for yes and no in such circumstances. Other languages have systems named the two-form, three-form, and four-form systems, depending on how many words for yes and no they employ. Several other languages have three-form systems. Some languages, such as Latin, have no yes-no word systems at all.

The words yes and no are not easily classified into any of the eight conventional parts of speech. Although sometimes classified as interjections, they do not qualify as such, nor are they adverbs. They are sometimes classified as a part of speech in their own right, sentence words, word sentences, or pro-sentences, although that category contains more than yes and no and not all linguists include them in their lists of sentence words. Sentences consisting solely of one of these two words are classified as minor sentences.

The differences among languages, the fact that in different languages the various words for yes and no have different parts of speech and different usages, and that some languages lack a 'yes-no' word system, makes idiomatic translation difficult.

English grammar classification

Although sometimes classified as interjections, these words do not express emotion or act as calls for attention; they are not adverbs because they do not qualify any verb, adjective, or adverb. They are sometimes classified as a part of speech in their own right, sentence words or word sentences.^[1][2][3]

This is the position of Otto Jespersen, who states that "'Yes' and 'No' […] are to all intents and purposes sentences just as much as the most delicately balanced sentences ever uttered by Demosthenes or penned by Samuel Johnson."^[4]

Georg von der Gabelentz, Henry Sweet, and Wegener have all written on the subject of sentence words, Wegener calling them "Wortsätze". Both Sweet and Wegener include yes and no in this category, with Sweet treating them separately from both imperatives and interjections, although Gabelentz does not.^[5]

Watts^[6] classifies yes and no as grammatical particles, in particular response particles. He also notes their relationship to the interjections oh and ah, which is that the interjections can precede yes and no but not follow them. Oh as an interjection expresses surprise, but in the combined forms oh yes and oh no merely acts as an intensifier; but ah in the combined forms ah yes and ah no retains its standalone meaning, of focusing upon the previous speaker's or writer's last statement. The forms *yes oh, *yes ah, *no oh, and *no ah are grammatically ill-formed. Aijmer^[7] similarly categorizes the yes and no as response signals or reaction signals.

Ameka classifies these two words in different ways according to context. When used as back-channel items, he classifies them as interjections; but when they are used as the responses to a yes-no question, he classifies them as formulaic words. The distinction between an interjection and a formula is, in Ameka's view, that the former does not have an addressee (although it may be directed at a person), whereas the latter does. The yes or no in response to the question is addressed at the interrogator, whereas yes or no used as a back-channel item is a feedback usage, an utterance that is said to oneself. However, Sorjonen criticizes this analysis as lacking empirical work on the other usages of these words, in addition to interjections and feedback uses.^[8]

Bloomfield and Hockett classify the words, when used to answer yes-no questions, as special completive interjections. They classify sentences comprising solely one of either of these two words as minor sentences.^[2]

Sweet classifies the words in several ways. They are sentence-modifying adverbs, adverbs that act as modifiers to an entire sentence. They are also sentence words, when standing alone. They may, as question responses, also be absolute forms that correspond to what would otherwise be the not in a negated echo response. For example, a "No." in response to the question "Is he here?" is equivalent to the echo response "He is not here.". Sweet observes that there is no correspondence with a simple yes in the latter situation, although the sentence-word "Certainly." provides an absolute form of an emphatic echo response "He is certainly here.". (Many other adverbs can also be used as sentence words in this way.)^[9]

Unlike yes, no can also be an adverb of degree, applying to adjectives solely in the comparative (e.g. no greater, no sooner, but not no soon or no soonest), and an adjective when applied to nouns (e.g. "He is no fool." and Dyer's "No clouds, no vapours intervene.")^[9][10]

Grammarians of other languages have created further, similar, special classifications for these types of words. Tesnière classifies the French oui and non as phrasillons logiques (along with voici). Fonagy observes that such a classification may be partly justified for the former two, but suggests that pragmatic holophrases is more appropriate.^[11]

The English four-form and two-form systems

There are many variants of yes and no in English. Two such spoken forms are transcribed into writing as Uh-huh or Mm-hmm ("yes", with accent on the second syllable) and Uh-uh or M-mm ("no", with accent on the first syllable). Their sounds are a nasal or non-nasal sound interrupted by a voiceless breathy interval for yes, and by a glottal stop for no. These forms are particularly useful for speakers who are unable to articulate the actual words yes and no because they are using their mouths for other tasks, such as eating for example, or because they are gagged.^[12]

The word "aye" is a frequent synonym for "yes", although not always officially acknowledged as such. In December 1993 a witness in a Scottish court who had answered "aye" to confirm he was the person summoned was told by the Sheriff that he must answer either "yes" or "no". When his name was read again and he was asked to confirm it, he answered "aye" again, and was imprisoned for 90 minutes for contempt of court. On his release he said "I genuinely thought I was answering him".^[13]

Both words are derived from adverbs in Old English (OE). Yes is derived from a compound of the OE adverb yea, which means surely, and so, and is thus surely so, while no comes from an OE adverb that means never.^[1] Whilst Modern English has a two-form system for affirmatives and negatives, Early Modern English (EME) in fact had a four-form system, comprising the words yea, nay, yes, and no. This is exemplified by the following passage from Much Ado about Nothing:^[14]

Claudio: Can the world buie such a iewell?
Benedick: Yea, and a case to put it into, but speake you this with a sad brow?

—William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act I, Scene I

Benedick's yea is the answer to a positively framed question. The answers to positively framed questions ("Will he go?") were yea and nay, whilst the answers to negatively framed questions ("Will he not go?") were yes and no. This subtle grammatical nicety of EME is recorded by Sir Thomas More in his critique of William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into EME, which was then quoted as an authority by later scholars:^[14]

I would not here note by the way that Tyndale here translateth no for nay, for it is but a trifle and mistaking of the Englishe worde : saving that ye shoulde see that he whych in two so plain Englishe wordes, and so common as in naye and no can not tell when he should take the one and when the tother, is not for translating into Englishe a man very mete. For the use of these two wordes in aunswering a question is this. No aunswereth the question framed by the affirmative. As for ensample if a manne should aske Tindall himselfe: ys an heretike meete to translate Holy Scripture into Englishe ? Lo to thys question if he will aunswere trew Englishe, he must aunswere nay and not no. But and if the question be asked hym thus lo: is not an heretike mete to translate Holy Scripture into Englishe ? To this question if he will aunswere trewe Englishe, he must aunswere no and not nay. And a lyke difference is there betwene these two adverbs ye and yes. For if the question bee framed unto Tindall by the affirmative in thys fashion. If an heretique falsely translate the New Testament into Englishe, to make his false heresyes seem the word of Godde, be his bokes worthy to be burned ? To this questyon asked in thys wyse, yf he will aunswere true Englishe, he must aunswere ye and not yes. But now if the question be asked him thus lo; by the negative. If an heretike falsely translate the Newe Testament into Englishe to make his false heresyee seme the word of God, be not hys bokes well worthy to be burned ? To thys question in thys fashion framed if he will aunswere trewe Englishe he may not aunswere ye but he must answere yes, and say yes marry be they, bothe the translation and the translatour, and al that wyll hold wyth them.

—Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, pp. 430^[15][16]

In fact, More's exemplification of the rule actually contradicts his statement of what the rule is. This went unnoticed by scholars such as Horne Tooke, Robert Gordon Latham, and Trench, and was first pointed out by George Perkins Marsh in his Century Dictionary, where he corrects More's incorrect statement of the first rule, "No aunswereth the question framed by the affirmative.", to read nay. That even More got the rule wrong, even whilst himself dressing-down Tyndale for getting it wrong, is seen by scholars such as Furness as evidence that the distinction between these four words was "truth, too subtle a distinction for practice". Benedick's answer of yea is a correct application of the rule, but as observed by W. A. Wright "Shakespeare does not always observe this rule, and even in the earliest times the usage appears not to have been consistent". Furness notes that this is indeed the case in the following, where Hermia's answer should, in following the rule, have been yes:^[14][17]

Demetrius: Do not you thinke, The Duke was heere, and bid vs follow him?
Hermia: Yea, and my Father.

—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream^[14]

Marsh himself found no evidence of a four-form system in Mœso-Gothic, although he reported finding "traces" in Old English. He observed that in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, positively-phrased questions are answered positively with gea (John 21:15,16) and negatively with ne (Luke 12:51; 13:5), nese (John 21:5; Matthew 13:29), and nic (John 18:17); whilst negatively phrased questions are answered positively with gyse (Matthew 17:25) and negatively with nâ (John 8:10).^[17]

Marsh calls this four-form system of EME a "needless subtlety". Tooke called it a "ridiculous distinction", with Marsh concluding that Tooke believed Thomas More to have simply made this rule up, and observing that Tooke is not alone in his disbelief of More. Marsh points out (having himself analyzed the works of John Wycliffe, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Skelton, and Robert of Gloucester, and Piers Ploughman and Le Morte d'Arthur to see where and how these words were used) that the distinction did exist, however, and was generally and fairly uniformly observed in EME from the time of Chaucer to the time of Tyndale. "yes" and "no" were reserved for answering negatively-phrased questions, whilst yea and nay served both as answers to positively-phrased questions and as normal intensifiers in responses to non-interrogative statements. But after the time of Tyndale, the four-form system was rapidly replaced by the modern two-form system.^[17]

Three form systems

Whilst English has a two-form system, and had a four-form system, several other languages have a three-form system. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Hungarian, German, and French all have three-form systems, with two affirmative words and one negative. Swedish and Danish have ja, jo, and nej. Norwegian has ja, jo, and nei. Icelandic has já, jú and nei. Hungarian has igen, de, and nem. German has ja, doch, and nein. French has oui, si, and non. In a three-form system the affirmative response to a positively-phrased question is the unmarked affirmative, the affirmative response to a negatively-phrased question is the marked affirmative, and the negative response to both forms of question is the (single) negative. So, for example, in Norwegian the affirmative answer to "Snakker du norsk?" ("Do you speak Norwegian?") is "Ja.", and the affirmative answer to "Snakker du ikke norsk?" ("Don't you speak Norwegian?") is "Jo.", whilst the negative answer to both questions is "Nei.".^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

Swedish, and to some extent Danish and Norwegian, also has additional forms javisst and jovisst, analogous to ja and jo, to indicate a strong affirmative response. Swedish and Danish also have the forms joho and nehej, which both indicate stronger response than jo or nej. Jo can also be used as an emphatic contradiction of a negative statement.^[19][22]

Other languages with four-form systems

Like EME, the Romanian language has a four-form system. The affirmative and negative responses to positively-phrased questions are da and nu, respectively. But in responses to negatively-phrased questions they are prefixed with ba (i.e. ba da and ba nu). nu is also used as a negation adverb, infixed between subject and verb. Thus, for examples, the affirmative response to the negatively phrased question "N-ai plătit?" ("Didn't you pay?") is "Ba da." ("Yes."—i.e. "I did pay."), and the negative response to a positively-phrased question beginning "Se poate să …?" ("Is it possible to …?") is "Nu, nu se poate." ("No, it is not possible."—note the use of nu for both no and negation of the verb.)^[23][24][25]

Related words in other languages and translation problems

Bloomfield and Hockett observe that not all languages have special completive interjections. In Polish, for example, tak (thus, so) and nie (not) are adverbs. Russian has the adverbs да and нет and Finnish does not generally answer yes-no questions with either adverbs or interjections but answers them with a repetition of the verb in the question, negating it if the answer is the negative. (This is an echo response.) The answer to "Tuletteko kaupungista?" ("Are you coming from town?") is the verb form itself, "Tulemme." ("We are coming."). Negative questions are answered similarly. Negative answers are just the negated verb form. The answer to "Tunnetteko herra Lehdon?" ("Do you know Mr Lehto?") is "En tunne" ("I don't know.") or simply "En." ("I don't.").^{[2][26][27][28]} However, Finnish does also have particle words for "yes": "Kyllä" (formal) and "joo" (colloquial, never used in writing). A yes-no question can be answered "yes" with either "kyllä" or "joo", which are not conjugated according to the person and plurality of the verb. "Ei", however, is always conjugated.

It is often said that Welsh has no words at all for yes and no. This is untrue. It has ie and nage. However, these are used only in specialized circumstances, and are but some of the many ways in Welsh of saying yes or no. As in Finnish, the main way to state yes or no, in answer to yes-no questions, is to echo the verb of the question. So the answers to "Ydy Ffred yn dod?" ("Is Ffred coming?") are either "Ydy." ("He is coming.") or "Nac ydy." ("He is not coming."). In general, the negative answer is the positive answer combined with nag. As in Finnish, this avoids the issue of what an unadorned yes means in response to a negative question. Whilst a yes response to the question "You don't beat your wife?" is ambiguous in English, the Welsh response ydw has no ambiguity. The same would apply for Finnish, where the question would be answered with en (I don't). For more information on yes and no answers to yes-no questions in Welsh, see Jones, listed in further reading.^[28][29][30]

Irish and other Gaelic languages do not have any words for "yes" or "no". Instead an echo response of the verb used to ask the question is used. Sometimes the verb used is "Tá" (to be). Example "An bhfuil sé ag teacht" (Is he coming). Answer: "Tá" (Is) or "Níl" (Is not). More frequently another verb will be used. Example "Ar chuala sé" (Did he hear). Answer "Chuala" (heard) or "Níor chuala" (Did not hear). Irish people frequently give echo answers in English as well. Example: "Did you hear?". Answer "I heard/I did". This also happens in Galician language.

Latin has no single words for yes and no. Their functions as intensifiers and interjections are taken up by using the vocative case. Their functions as word sentence responses to yes-no questions are taken up by sentence adverbs, single adverbs that are sentence modifiers and that also can be used as word sentences. There are several such adverbs which are classed as truth-value adverbs—including certe, fortasse, nimirum, plane, vero, etiam, sane, minime, and videlicet. They express the speaker's/writer's feelings about the truth value of a proposition. They, in conjunction with the negator non, are used as responses to yes-no questions.^{[2][31][32][33][34]} For examples:

Visum’st.
Certe’n?
Certe.

("Sure I am." "Absolutely?" "Absolutely.")

—Terence, Hec. 843–844^[32]

"Quid enim diceres? Damnatum? Certe non." ("For what could you say? That I had been condemned? Assuredly not.")

—Cicero, Dom. 51^[32]

Latin also employs echo responses.^[33][35]

So, too, does Chinese.^[36] In all dialects, yes-no questions are often posed in A-not-A form, and the replies to such questions are echo answers that echo either A or not A.^[37][38] The closest equivalents to yes and no are to state "是" (shì; "It is the case.") and "不是" (búshì; "It is not the case.").^[39][40] (In Cantonese, the preceding are 係 hai6 and 唔係 m4 hai6, respectively.) When used as an interjection, No! is often said as 不要 (literally, "do not want" or "do not"). The now-infamous bootleg version of Star Wars Episode III, poorly translated from Chinese to English, translated Darth Vader's cry of "Noooooooo" (不要) as "Do not want"; this translation error became an internet meme.^[41]

Japanese does not have words for yes and no. The words "はい" (hai) and "いいえ" (iie) are mistaken by English speakers for equivalents to yes and no, but they actually signify agreement or disagreement with the proposition put by the question – i.e. "That's correct." or "That's incorrect." ^[36][42]

Like the English contraction of OE yea so into yes, the words for yes and no in other languages originate from a process of devaluation and semantic erosion. The Hungarian strong affirmative persze was originally the Latin phrase per se intelligitur (it stands to reason), for example. German nein similarly is derived from the Old High German ni ein, which means not a single one. (In Latin, non similarly devolved from noenum, which also means not a single.) The French oui was formerly oïl (after which Langue d'oïl is named) which in turn came from the Vulgar Latin hoc ille, meaning this one (i.e. "it is this one").^[11]

These differences between languages make translation difficult. No two languages are isomorphic, even at the elementary level of the words for yes and no. Translation from two-form to three-form systems is something that English-speaking schoolchildren learning French or German soon encounter. But the mapping is not even as simple as converting two forms into three. There are many idioms, such as reduplication (in French, German, and Italian) of affirmatives for emphasis (e.g. the German ja ja ja). Furthermore, the mappings are one-to-many in both directions. The German ja has no fewer than 13 English equivalents that vary according to context and usage (yes, yeah, and no when used as an answer; well, alright, so, and now, when used for segmentation; oh, ah, uh, and eh when used an interjection; and do you, will you, and their various inflections when used as a marker for tag questions) for example. Moreover, both ja and doch are frequently used as additional particles for conveying nuanced meaning where in English no such particle exists. Straightforward, non-idiomatic, translations from German to English and then back to German can often result in the loss of all of the modal particles such as ja and doch from a text.^{[43][44][45][46]}

Translation from languages that have word systems to those that do not, such as Latin, is similarly problematic. As Calvert says, "[s]aying yes or no takes a little thought in Latin".^[34]

See also

• Translation
• Untranslatability

References

1. ^ ^{a b} E. A. Sonnenschein (2008). "Sentence words". A New English Grammar Based on the Recommendations of the Joint Committee on Grammatical Terminology. READ BOOKS. p. 54. ISBN 9781408689295. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Leonard Bloomfield and Charles F. Hockett (1984). Language. University of Chicago Press. pp. 176–177. ISBN 9780226060675. 
3. ^ Alfred S. West. "Yes and No. What are we to call the words Yes and No?". The Elements Of English Grammar. p. 173. ISBN 9781408680506. 
4. ^ Xabier Arrazola, Kepa Korta, and Francis Jeffry (1995). Discourse, Interaction, and Communication. Springer. p. 11. ISBN 9780792349525. 
5. ^ Giorgio Graffi (2001). 200 Years of Syntax. John Benjamins B.V.. p. 121. ISBN 1588110524. 
6. ^ Richard J. Watts (1986). "Generated or degenerate?". In Dieter Kastovsky, A. J. Szwedek, Barbara Płoczińska, and Jacek Fisiak. Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries. Walter de Gruyter. p. 166. ISBN 9783110104264. 
7. ^ Karin Aijmer (2002). "Interjections in a Contrastive Perspective". In Edda Weigand. Emotion in Dialogic Interaction. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 102. ISBN 9781588114976. 
8. ^ Marja-Leena Sorjonen (2001). Responding in Conversation. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 19. ISBN 9789027250858. 
9. ^ ^{a b} Henry Sweet (1900). "Adverbs". A New English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 126–127. ISBN 1402153759. 
10. ^ Henry Kiddle and Goold Brown (1867). The First Lines of English Grammar. New York: William Wood and Co.. p. 102. 
11. ^ ^{a b} Ivan Fonagy (2001). Languages Within Language. John Benjamins B.V.. p. 66. ISBN 0927232820. 
12. ^ James R. Hurford (1994). "Interjections". Grammar. Cambridge University Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 9780521456272. 
13. ^ "Scotsman 'ayes' his way to the cells", The Times, 11 December 1993.
14. ^ ^{a b c d} William Shakespeare (1900). Horace Howard Furness. ed. Much Ado about Nothing. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.. p. 25.  (editorial footnotes)
15. ^ Robert Gordon Latham (1850). The English language. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly. p. 497. 
16. ^ William Tyndale (1850). Henry Walter. ed. An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue. Cambridge: The University Press. 
17. ^ ^{a b c d} George Perkins Marsh (1867). "Affirmative and Negative Particles". Lectures on the English Language. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.. pp. 578–583. 
18. ^ Åse-Berit Strandskogen and Rolf Strandskogen (1986). Norwegian. Oris Forlag. p. 146. ISBN 0415109795. 
19. ^ ^{a b} Philip Holmes and Ian Hinchliffe (1997). "Interjections". Swedish. Routledge. p. 121. ISBN 9780415161602. 
20. ^ Nigel Armstrong (2005). Translation, Linguistics, Culture. Multilingual Matters. p. 95. ISBN 9781853598050. 
21. ^ Greg Nees (2000). Germany. Intercultural Press. p. 74. ISBN 9781877864759. 
22. ^ Philip Holmes and Ian Hinchliffe (2003). "Ja, nej, jo, etc.". Swedish. Routledge. pp. 428–429. ISBN 9780415278836. 
23. ^ Ramona Gönczöl-Davies (2007). Romanian. Routledge. p. 135. ISBN 9780415338257. 
24. ^ Graham Mallinson (1986). "answers to yes-no questions". Rumanian. Croom Helm Ltd. p. 21. ISBN 0709935374. 
25. ^ Birgit Gerlach (2002). "The status of Romance clitics between words and affixes". Clitics Between Syntax and Lexicon. John Benjamins BV. p. 60. ISBN 9027227721. 
26. ^ Carl Philipp Reiff (1862). "The Adverb and the Gerund". English-Russian Grammar. Paris: Maisonneuve and Co.. p. 134. 
27. ^ Wendy G. Lehnert and Brian K. Stucky (1988). "Understanding answers to questions". In Michel Meyer. Questions and Questioning. New York: de Gruyter. pp. 224, 232. ISBN 3110106809. 
28. ^ ^{a b} Cliff Goddard (2003). "Yes or no? The complex semantics of a simple question". In Peter Collins and Mengistu Amberber (PDF). Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. p. 7. http://als.asn.au./proceedings/als2002/Goddard.pdf. 
29. ^ Gareth King (1996). "Yes/no answers". Basic Welsh. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN 9780415120968. 
30. ^ Mark H Nodine (2003-06-14). "How to say "Yes" and "No"". A Welsh Course. Cardiff School of Computer Science, Cardiff University. http://cs.cf.ac.uk./fun/welsh/Lesson02.html. 
31. ^ Dirk G. J. Panhuis (2006). Latin Grammar. University of Michigan Press. p. 184. ISBN 9780472115426. 
32. ^ ^{a b c} Harm Pinkster (2004). "Attitudinal and illocutionary satellites in Latin". In Aertsen, Henk-Hannay, Mike-Lyall, Rod (PDF). Words in their places. A Festschrift for J. Lachlan MackenzieIII. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. pp. 191–195. http://harmpinkster.nl./files/articles/Adverbs_in_Latin.pdf. 
33. ^ ^{a b} George J. Adler (1858). A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language; with Perpetual Exercises in Speaking and Writing. Boston: Sanborn, Carter, Bazin, & Co.. p. 8. 
34. ^ ^{a b} J. B. Calvert (1999-06-24). "Comparison of adjectives and adverbs, and saying yes or no". Latin For Mountain Men. Elizabeth R. Tuttle. http://mysite.du.edu./~etuttle/classics/latin/latin16.htm. 
35. ^ Walter B. Gunnison (2008). Latin for the First Year. READ BOOKS. p. 300. ISBN 9781443714594. 
36. ^ ^{a b} Yoshii, Bork, Milne, Katada, & Zhang (2004). "Reaching Students of Many Languages and Cultures". In Sanjaya Mishra. Interactive Multimedia in Education and Training. Idea Group Inc (IGI). p. 85. ISBN 9781591403944. 
37. ^ Stephen Matthews and Virginia Yip (1994). Cantonese. Routledge. p. 311. ISBN 9780415089456. 
38. ^ Timothy Shopen (1987). "Dialectal variations". Languages and Their Status. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812212495. 
39. ^ Lexus, Lexus, Lexus (1999). Mandarin Chinese. Rough Guides. ISBN 9781858286075. 
40. ^ Bingzheng Tong, Ping-cheng T'ung, and David E. Pollard (1982). Colloquial Chinese. Routledge. p. 25. ISBN 0415018609. 
41. ^ "Top ten Star Wars myths and legends: Do not want". VirginMedia.com. http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/movieextras/top10s/top-ten-star-wars-myths-and-legends.php?ssid=10. Retrieved 2008-12-30. 
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Further reading

• Bob Morris Jones (1999). The Welsh Answering System. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110164503. —Jones' analysis of how to answer questions with "yes" or "no" in the Welsh language, broken down into a typology of echo and non-echo responsives, polarity and truth-value responses, and numbers of forms
• George L. Huttar (1994). "Words for 'yes', 'no', 'maybe'". Ndyuka: A Descriptive Grammar. Routledge. p. 42. ISBN 9780415059923.