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subquestion

subquestion

4.6
A smaller question that helps answer a main question
  • noun
  • /sʌbˈkwɛsʧən/
translation icon : subpregunta
  • During the discussion, the professor posed several main questions, each followed by relevant subquestions to guide the students' understanding.
  • three subquestions

Examples

  • There were six interview questions: three central questions and three subquestions.

    Academic text (2015)
  • In WatsonPaths, we ask many subquestions using different ways of breaking down the scenario.

    Academic text (2017)
  • Most importantly, the way that subquestions are answered is completely general.

    Academic text (2017)
  • The grand tour question was then followed by minitour questions and a series of more specific subquestions.

    Academic text (2007)
  • We do not have robust and comprehensive ground truth for a sufficiently large set of our automatically generated subquestions.

    Academic text (2017)
  • We use a medical ontology to guide the process of formulating subquestions to ask Watson.

    Academic text (2017)
  • By asking the right subquestions and using the right corpus, we can apply WatsonPaths to any scenario-based question-answering problem.

    Academic text (2017)
  • The subquestions analyzed the involvement of administrators and organizational factors in telemedicine adoption and development.

    Academic text (2015)
  • To clarify the issue, he formulated a series of subquestions that examined the underlying assumptions of the primary question.

  • The report included a main research question along with various subquestions to explore different aspects of the topic.

How Specific

subquestion
4.6
question
1.0

Surface Forms

subquestion singular
subquestions plural

Morphology

subquestion = question (transparent) = sub + question

Formed by productive prefixation of 'sub-' (meaning subordinate or secondary) to 'question', so the meaning 'a smaller/supporting question' is directly inferable.

Etymology

The word subquestion starts with sub- meaning 'under' or 'below', as in submarine, and ends with question meaning 'a question'. So a subquestion is a smaller, supporting question that sits 'under' the main question to help explain it.