The underlying question is obfuscated by the composition.
The question is what does the tree "make". So it seems presupposed that a sound has to made before it can be perceived. Then the answer can be yes, a sound was made.
It's not just semantic, but syntactic. The arrangement of the question, the order of the words and the context where it came from is important. When a tree falls, what does it make, a) a sound b) nothing, there is no agency involved? Again you'd have to go with a because the question posed the tree as the acting subject of the question. I mean, you cannot put "nobody" in the subject position, or the answer would be obvious. I mean, "nobody saw no tree falling, what sound did it make?" is utter nonsense. "Everyone did not hear a tree fall, did it make a sound" -- Usually it would, so why did nobody hear it? "Because they were not there". Everyone was dead? "No, they were far away". So, distance makes a difference? "yes". Why? "That's what I'm asking you". The crux is, the tree is completely hypothetical, yet a lot of noise was made because of it, because it's right here in our imagination, very close by.
