Tag question

The other night I was talking to my sister in law who is an American native speaker. I spoke: "He is drinking a cup of hot tea". She replied: " is he". (note: Here he is referring to my brother).


I was taught in grammar books that in order to make tag questions, if your first statement is positive then your tag question should be negative or vice versa. I am perplexed on this issue. Any comments.


Thanks.

I have nothing useful to say except for I say this all the time and am confused to how it is wrong- another case of you grow up with a language so don't know the gramar lol! How does your book say it should be said?

Put it this way it can't be wrong, even if it is, no one would bat an eyelid over here (UK)

How is it a substandard reference? People like to drink hot or medium hot tea. If your point is vaild then get rid of this phrase from the language" popping hot tea". It does not make any sense at all. Just say tea because people always like to drink their tea hot.

However, I appreciate your help. This kind of stuff is not discussed in ESL books. So today I learned something new like people can make tag questions with proper stress.

<<The other night I was talking to my sister in law who is an American native speaker. I spoke: "He is drinking a cup of hot tea". She replied: " is he". (note: Here he is referring to my brother).

I was taught in grammar books that in order to make tag questions, if your first statement is positive then your tag question should be negative or vice versa. I am perplexed on this issue. Any comments.>>

That's not a tag question. Your friend is just asking for confirmation. (In this context, it wouldn't have made sense for your friend to ask "Isn't he?") A tag question occurs when you make a statement into a question by adding an interrogative fragment - as if you yourself had said, "He is drinking a cup of hot tea, isn't he?" But in this case, you made a statement and your friend simply asked a question about it.

Correction: by friend I mean sister in law. :)

<<If your point is vaild then get rid of this phrase from the language" popping hot tea".>>

The term in English is "piping hot".

In any case, most native speakers would just say "cup of tea" in this context. I wouldn't go so far as to say that "cup of hot tea" is substandard, but I think it's rarely used and generally unnecessary.

Americans like to drink iced tea, so it would be normal for them to stress that the tea was hot, I think.

Iced tea is usually drunk from a glass or a bottle, not a cup. I'm an American who likes both hot tea and iced tea, and to me it sounds unnatural to say "cup of hot tea" in this context.

Substandard? I think you need to learn more about tea.

Tea can be:

Hot, in a cup.
Hot, in a can
Cold, in a can
Iced, in a glass

Think I'm joking? They sell canned tea in my grocery now. Many oriental markets have hot tea in a can.

"Iced tea is usually drunk from a glass or a bottle, not a cup. I'm an American who likes both hot tea and iced tea, and to me it sounds unnatural to say "cup of hot tea" in this context."

I don't know if I would go so far as to say adding the "hot" sounds unnatural, but we would certainly assume it was hot just from it being in a cup, as Lazar says. And both hot and iced tea are pretty common in the US, not just iced tea.

"Is he?" is a perfectly normal sentence in this context, although its purpose is probably just to be a polite response or acknowledgement, rather than a real question.

I think I would say "hot cup of tea" rather than "cup of hot tea".

I call this grammar pattern "Echo questions" (I am not sure it's my coinage). It's very common.
If the intonation is descending, it's <a polite response or acknowledgement, rather than a real question> (Uriel).
If it's rising, it's an expression of surprise or disbelief.

- Greg hates English.
- Does he?
- Very much so.

- I am not going to have supper tonight.
- Aren't you?
- No, I need to shed some weight.

In the case of tag questions, (although agree that this particular example isn't one), a positive auxiliary verb becomes negative in the question, and vice versa.

- We must remember to buy champagne, mustn't we?

- We mustn't drink it all in one go, must we?

However, both can be positive:

- We must remember to buy champagne, must we?
(Slightly different tone; almost more questioning?)

But not negative:

- We mustn't remember to buy champagne, mustn't we?