Question tags and short answers

A question tag is a short question added to the end of a statement to check information or invite agreement, like 'isn't it?' or 'don't they?'. The basic rule is reversed polarity: a positive statement takes a negative tag and a negative statement takes a positive tag ('You are coming, aren't you?'; 'She doesn't drive, does she?'). The tag repeats the auxiliary of the main verb, or uses do/does/did if there is no auxiliary, and always ends with a pronoun. A few cases must be memorised: 'I am' takes 'aren't I?'; an imperative usually takes 'will you?'; 'Let's' takes 'shall we?'; words like never, nobody, hardly make the statement negative, so the tag is positive. Closely related are short answers, which avoid repeating the whole verb ('Yes, I do'; 'No, she isn't'), and the agreement structures 'So + auxiliary + subject' (for positive agreement) and 'Neither/Nor + auxiliary + subject' (for negative agreement): 'I like tea.' — 'So do I.' For example: 'You haven't finished yet, have you?' — 'No, I haven't.'