English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
B9.2 Interrogatives
B9 Clause types
Section B Development
The most important formal characteristic of interrogatives is the inversion of the subject with the first auxiliary, as we saw in A7:
Can you spell it for me?
Otherwise they are the same as declaratives in terms of their word order and the presence of elements that are required by the verb. There is one situation, however, where interrogatives do not involve inversion; this is described below. (And we should note that inversion does have other uses; see A11.) In writing, of course, we can usually identify interrogatives by the presence of a question mark, but we have seen one exception to this above (the declarative question), and we will see another below.
We can identify a number of different types of interrogative, all involving inversion. The accepted terminology for them includes the word ’question’, so this is how they are referred to below. One other type, indirect questions, is discussed in B12.
Yes/no and alternative questions
Interrogatives beginning with an inverted auxiliary, are called yes/no questions, since yes and no could form the responses to them (but do not have to).
Did you remember to bring the money?
Alternative questions have the same form as yes/no questions, beginning with subject/ auxiliary inversion, but then continue with or so that the responder cannot answer yes or no:
Will you call or email them?
Requests also have the structure of yes/no questions:
Would you mind opening the door?
However, while yes and no can be responses to them, it is action that is the desired response. So it is debatable whether they are actually questions. Above we saw a case of a question that is not an interrogative, but here we possibly have a case of an interrogative that is not a question.
Tag questions
Tag questions (or question tags) are short interrogatives clauses that follow declaratives and turn them into questions. Tag questions repeat the subject and auxiliary (inserting do if there is none) of the declarative, but with inversion and a change from positive to negative or vice versa. For example:
You saw them, didn’t you?
You didn’t see them, did you?
The tag can either have falling intonation, which indicates that the speaker is merely seeking confirmation of the declarative clause, or rising intonation (like a normal yes/no question), which indicates that the speaker is not sure of the answer.
Positive tag questions following positive declaratives are also possible:
So you think you know it, do you?
This can be used to echo a previous statement, or to draw a conclusion based on something said before.
Activity B9.1
Turn the following declaratives into yes/no and tag questions.
1. You brought the money.
2. She hasn’t brought the money.
NON-STANDARD FORMS AND VARIATION IN ENGLISH
In informal English there are a number of other possibilities, such as right and okay, which are used as universal tag questions:
You’re coming, right?
Innit and isn’t it are used in the same way in some varieties of English.
Wh- questions
This type of interrogative is introduced by a word beginning with wh-:
what, who, whom, whose, which, why, where, when and how (plus combinations with how, such as how much). How is an ’honorary’ member of this group (since it does not begin with wh-).
For example:
What did he say?
How should I know?
The choice of words is firstly a matter of clause elements (see A8):
□ why, where, when and how relate to adverbials
Why did he do it?
Where is he living?
□ what, who and whom relate to subjects, objects and predicatives:
What have you done?
Who are you discussing?
□ which and whose are usually determiners (as is what sometimes), i.e. part of one element:
Which route shall we take?
Whose money is this?
But they can occur alone, with the noun implied: Which shall we take? Whose is this?
The choice between what, who and whom relates to whether the noun phrase refers to a human (who, whom) or non-human (what). Who can refer to human subjects, objects or predicatives:
Who is he?
while whom is restricted to objects, and is very formal:
Whom did you ask?
The normal question would be Who did you ask? Whom is only obligatory with prepositional objects:
At whom did you laugh?
but this is not the case if the preposition has been left behind, or ’stranded’ (see also relative clauses in B10):
Who did you laugh at?
Activity B9.2
What clause elements do the underlined words or phrases represent in these interrogatives (taken from above)?
1. Who are you discussing?
2. Which route shall we take?
3. Whose money is this?
4. Who is he?
5. How should I know?
Wh- questions do not always have inversion. When who or what represent the subject of the clause, subject-verb inversion is not allowed, as the question word must come at the start of the sentence. Thus
Who broke the window?
(and not ’Did who break the window?’ However, Who did break the window? is possible as an emphatic question).
We can suggest the following sequence of operations in the formation of wh- interrogatives:
□ replace the particular unit with an appropriate question word
□ insert do if necessary (transferring the finite element to it) and invert the subject with the first auxiliary (see A7); this will not apply if the subject is the wh- word
□ promote the wh- word to the start of the clause (along with the noun if it is which or whose)
For example, with an object that is ’questioned’:
Activity B9.3
Turn the following declaratives into wh- questions, focusing on the underlined words and phrases and replacing them with wh- words.
1. I’ve bought a new bike.
2. The concert is in May.
3. I went to the US this summer.
4. Something caused this damage.
5. This is my car.
6. The fire lasted three days.
7. I saw you with a stranger.