English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009
Questions
13 Questions and Negatives
Part 3 Sentences
Every language has ways of forming questions and negatives. In English, the processes of forming questions and negatives are closely related. First we will examine how English forms questions, and then we will turn to negatives.
Questions
In all languages there are two fundamentally different types of questions: yes-no questions and information questions.
Yes-no questions ask for “yes” or “no” answers. Information questions, on the other hand, ask for specific information and cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. Here are some examples of each type:
Here are some roughly comparable yes-no and information questions:
Yes-no questions Information questions
Is there a staff meeting today? When is the staff meeting?
Do you know his wife’s name? What is his wife’s name?
Can I go, too? Where are you going?
Will you be late? When will you get back?
Obviously, the answers to the yes-no questions only anticipate an answer of yes or no, while the information question requires a specific piece of information. A mere yes or no to the question, “When is the staff meeting?” would be inadequate and inappropriate.
Exercise 13.1
Underline the verbs in the following questions and label each question as either yes-no or information.
1. Can you determine the exact cost?
2. Whom did the police finally arrest for the crime?
3. How much can we afford?
4. Have they decided yet?
5. Was the ending of the movie really surprising?
6. Why should they want that?
7. Is the phone ringing?
8. Has it been raining all day?
9. Must they insure it for the full amount?
10. Will you be ready by six?
11. How much would it cost?
12. Will my using my cell phone disturb you?
13. Why should we care about it?
14. Has Lois approved it yet?
15. How often will we be meeting over the next couple of weeks?
Yes-no questions
There are two different ways that English forms yes-no questions: yes-no questions and tag questions. Here is an example of each:
Yes-no question: Are you ready to go?
Tag question: You are ready to go, aren’t you?
Since tag questions always involve negatives, we will postpone dealing with them until the next section on negatives.
The basic characteristic of yes-no questions is that the subject and verb are inverted. In a statement, the normal word order is subject + verb. In yes-no questions, the subject and verb have been inverted so that the word order is verb + subject.
Here are some more examples with the subject in italics and the verb in bold:
Statement Inverted yes-no question
We should call them. Should we call them?
Bill is sick. Is Bill sick?
I can come, too. Can I come, too?
They will be home late. Will they be home late?
You are leaving tonight. Are you leaving tonight?
He has lost his mind. Has he lost his mind?
Only a handful of verbs can be used in forming inverted yes-no questions. The vast majority of verbs cannot be inverted. For example:
Statement word order Inverted word order
John works in New York. X Works John in New York?
He commutes from Princeton. X Commutes he from Princeton?
His parents live in California. X Live his parents in California?
(If you think these inverted questions have a vaguely Shakespearean or King James Bible ring to them, you are absolutely correct. Up until the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was perfectly grammatical to form yes-no questions by inverting the first verb with the subject, no matter what the first verb was: helping verbs and main verbs alike both inverted with the subjects.)
There is no standard name in traditional grammar for the verbs in modern English that can be inverted to form yes-no questions. The verbs that can be inverted are made up of just the following three groups of verbs:
1. Modal auxiliary verbs: These include can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would. Here are some examples of questions formed with modal auxiliary verbs:
Statement word order Inverted word order
We can drive there. Can we drive there?
I may see you later. May I see you later?
You would like them. Would you like them?
Note: In traditional grammar will is singled out from the other modal auxiliary verbs as part of the future tense. Actually, there is nothing special about will from a grammatical point of view— it is just another one of the modal auxiliary verbs.
2. Helping verbs: The helping verbs are be and have. They help to form the progressive and perfect tenses.
Progressive: be (am, is, are, was, were)
Perfect: have (have, has, had)
Here are some examples of questions formed with helping verbs:
Statement word order Inverted word order
He is leaving soon. Is he leaving soon?
John was staying there. Was John staying there?
They have been very busy. Have they been very busy?
She had returned his e-mail. Had she returned his e-mail?
3. Main verbs: In American English, the only main verb that can be used to form yes-no questions is be (am, is, are, was, were). Here are some examples of questions formed with the main verb be:
Statement word order Inverted word order
The kids are at school. Are the kids at school?
Jane is an accountant. Is Jane an accountant?
He is here. Is he here?
Note: In British English have used as a main verb can also be inverted to form yes-no questions. We will discuss the difference between the British and American use of have as a main verb later in this chapter.
Exercise 13.2
Turn the following statements into yes-no questions. Underline the verb(s) in the question and identify whether the first verb is a modal auxiliary, helping verb, or main verb.
John has locked the gates.
1. We are ready to leave soon.
2. You can translate that into Spanish.
3. The kids were very happy with their presents.
4. I should decline a second helping of your terrific dessert.
5. They will be able to finance it by themselves.
6. The French filmmakers have influenced his movies a lot.
7. Her criticism is of great concern to the board.
8. I’m working on it.
9. He should postpone his trip.
10. They are just kidding.
11. It has gone on too long.
12. He could have done it differently.
13. They are in big trouble about this.
14. That will stain the carpet.
15. We are turning around at the next corner.
To this point, we have formed yes-no questions from statements that contained verbs that can be inverted: the nine modal auxiliary verbs, the two helping verbs (be and have) and the main verb be (ignoring the British use of the main verb have for the moment).
What happens, however, when the statement does not contain any of these verbs? The answer is unique to English: we insert into the sentence what amounts to a dummy auxiliary verb. This dummy verb takes away the tense marker from the main verb (just like any modal auxiliary or helping verb) so that the main verb becomes an uninflected base form. The dummy verb, in its present or past tense form, is then inverted with the subject just like any other auxiliary verb. This dummy verb, is, of course, the verb do. Here are some examples using this dummy auxiliary verb.
Let’s start with a simple sentence:
John smiled.
We cannot invert the verb smiled because it is neither an auxiliary verb nor a helping verb. What we do instead is insert the dummy auxiliary verb do in front of the main verb smiled. We will call this process the do insertion rule.
After do has been inserted just in front of the verb, we will automatically transfer the tense marker from that verb to do. (All we are really saying is that the first verb must always carry the present or past tense marker.) In our example, do picks up the past-tense marker from smiled so that do becomes did and smiled, having lost its past-tense marker, reverts back to its base form smile. The do insertion rule has now produced this intermediate sentence:
John did smile.
This is a perfectly grammatical sentence. It is a kind of emphatic version of the original sentence. It emphasizes that John really did smile, even though it is not something that we would normally expect of John. (This emphatic use of do as a kind of special-purpose auxiliary verb is the actual historical source of the do used in yes-no questions and negatives in modern English.)
This intermediate sentence now contains an auxiliary verb that can be inverted in the normal way to produce an ordinary yes-no question:
John did smile. → Did John smile?
Here are some more examples of changing statements to yes-no questions using the intermediate step of forming an emphatic do statement:
Statement Emphatic do statement Yes-no question
The TV works. The TV does work. Does the TV work?
She got the answer. She did get the answer. Did she get the answer?
He returned it. He did return it. Did he return it?
It rained. It did rain. Did it rain?
I care. I do care. Do I care?
Exercise 13.3
Turn the following statements into yes-no questions using the do insertion rule to form an emphatic do statement.
He shut the window.
Emphatic do statement Yes-no question
He did shut the window Did he shut the window?
1. He installed the program.
2. Tom fell down.
3. Ralph bought a camera.
4. Ruth swims every day.
5. The meeting lasted hours.
6. They trust each other.
7. The boss quit yesterday.
8. They tried really hard.
9. The wind damaged it.
10. Bob retires soon.
11. She loaned him her car.
12. He wrecked her car.
13. She got really angry.
14. He paid for the damages.
15. She still talks to him.
Exercise 13.4
Change the following sentences directly to their corresponding yes-no questions. Notice that some verbs will require do and some will not. Underline all the verbs in both the statement and the yes-no question.
Statement Yes-no question
The CEO has approved the deal. Has the CEO approved the deal?
The CEO approved the deal. Did the CEO approve the deal?
1. They guessed the right answer. ...
2. You can combine the results. ...
3. That eliminated the problem.
4. That is stretching the material.
5. They will hire a consultant.
6. We have gathered enough material.
7. You can get away this weekend.
8. They questioned the results.
9. Ruth can convince them of anything.
10. The kids are making too much noise.
11. This seat is occupied.
12. It will rain this afternoon.
13. I should ignore his advice.
14. They have examined the issue carefully.
15. The photographer is ready.
There are not many differences in grammar between British and American English, but the use of have as a main verb is one of them. In American English, have as a main verb is just like any other main verb (except be, of course). To form a yes-no question, we must use the dummy helping verb do. For example:
Statement Inverted yes-no question
She has a cold. Does she have a cold?
They had a good time. Did they have a good time?
I have a question. Do you have a question?
The program had a bug. Did the program have a bug?
In British English, however, have can also be treated like the main verb be: it is inverted with the subject without the use of do. For example:
Statement Inverted yes-no question
She has a cold. Has she a cold?
They had a good time. Had they a good time?
I have a question. Have you a question?
The program had a bug. Had the program a bug?
According to some studies, in British English the use of do with have as a main verb is becoming more common in informal situations so that, for example, you would hear both of these in conversation in England:
Has she a cold?
Does she have a cold?
Likewise, the British use of have as a main verb is much more commonly heard in American English that it was a few generations ago.
Exercise 13.5
Change the following statements containing have into both British and American English.
We have a problem.
British English American English
Have we a problem? Do we have a problem?
1. You have a glass.
2. The car has a flat tire.
3. You have your ticket.
4. She has a good chance.
5. Your cat has a name.
6. The house has a pool.
7. The picture has a frame.
8. The book has an index.
9. The letter has a stamp.
10. The car has a GPS.
One problem nonnative speakers may have with yes-no questions is that in informal conversational English, nobody seems to follow the rules. In listening to casual conversation, you will be surprised at how frequent nonstandard, informal yes-no questions are. One study of conversational English found that informal questions made up an astonishing 41 percent of the total number of questions.
By far the most common informal yes-no question is one in which an inverted verb (or be as a main verb) has been deleted. In the following examples, the deleted verb is represented by —:
Standard yes-no question Elliptical yes-no question
Are they going to the meeting? — They going to the meeting?
Are you ready? — You ready?
Do you know where the sugar is? — You know where the sugar is?
Have you had lunch yet? — You had lunch yet?
Notice the deleted verb is either a helping verb (some form of be from a progressive tense; some form of have from a perfect tense; or some form of the dummy helping verb do) or it is some form of be used as a main tense. We cannot delete modal auxiliary verbs. For example:
Standard yes-no question Elliptical yes-no question
Can I come with you? X — I come with you?
Will we get there on time? X — We get there on time?
Should they call a cab? X — They call a cab?
Exercise 13.6
Change the statements in the left column to the corresponding informal yes-no question in the right column. Use a — to represent the position of the missing verb. If you cannot change the statement into an informal yes-no question, write Invalid.
Statement Informal yes-no question
You are taking a break. — You taking a break?
1. The group is working on it.
2. They are redoing the office again.
3. We have been opening new stores.
4. You can locate the Smith file.
5. The cat is staring at the goldfish.
6. You have been sleeping badly lately.
7. They should try to finish today.
8. Harry was very upset about it.
9. There have been some questions.
10. You miss me. (Tricky!)
Information questions
The other major type of question is information questions. They are called information questions because (unlike yes-no questions) they begin with interrogative pronouns that ask for specific kinds of information. For example, information questions that begin with the interrogative pronoun where ask for information about place. For example, the question
Where did Charlie go?
must be answered with information about the places where Charlie could have gone. For instance:
He went to Chicago.
He went home.
He went where he could get a good latte.
Here is a list of the main single-word interrogative pronouns arranged by the part of speech that the interrogative pronoun plays:
Pronoun Part of speech Example
Who, whom Noun phrase Who are you?
Whom did you meet?
What, which Noun phrase What did you find?
Which did you pick?
Whose, which Possessive Whose book is on the desk?
Noun phrase Which book do you want?
Where Adverb of place Where are you going?
When Adverb of time When will you get there?
Why Adverb of reason Why do you want to go there?
How Adverb of manner How will you get there?
In addition, there are a number of interrogatives compounded with how. All of these are adverbs. For example:
How often Frequency How often do you go there?
How long Length in time/space How long will you stay?
How far Distance How far is it?
How much Quantity How much does it cost to go there?
How soon Quickness How soon can you get there?
Sometimes these adverbs are called interrogative adverbs, and sometimes they are merely lumped together with the other interrogative pronouns, as we will do here.
Exercise 13.7
Underline the interrogative pronouns and label their part of speech: noun, possessive noun, or type of adverb.
1. Who are you?
2. Whom did you say you were?
3. How much gasoline do we need to buy?
4. Whose advice should we take?
5. When shall we three meet again?
6. Why do we want to do that?
7. Whom did they finally pick?
8. How did your team do this weekend?
9. Whose dog is that in the backyard?
10. How much longer do we have to wait?
If you look at the ten information questions in Exercise 13.7, you will immediately notice one thing: all information questions begin with an interrogative pronoun. Clearly, one part of forming information questions is to move the interrogative pronoun to the first position in the sentence (unless it was already in the first position to begin with). To get a sense of how this process works, let us begin with a simple example:
Where shall we eat?
Underlying every question, no matter whether it is a yes-no question or an information question, there is a corresponding statement. The statement that underlies this information question is
Here the interrogative pronoun where originates as an adverb of place following the verb eat.
We change this underlying statement into something approximating the final information question by moving the interrogative adverb to the beginning of the sentence:
We should eat where. → Where we should eat?
In many languages in the world,
Where we should eat?
would be a perfectly grammatical sentence. English, of course, makes the process more complicated.
Information questions must also undergo the same rule that we saw for yes-no questions: we must invert the first verb with the subject. In other words, there is a general rule that holds equally for both yes-no and information questions. In our example, the final step in converting the underlying statement to a question is inverting the verb should and the subject we:
Where we should eat. → Where should we eat?
As you can see, there is a two-step process for converting underlying statements into information questions:
1. Move the interrogative pronoun to the first position in the sentence.
2. Invert the verb and subject.
Here are some more examples showing the application of the two rules:
Note that the possessive noun whose can never be separated from car, the word whose modifies. In other words the possessive noun + noun unit makes up a single noun phrase that cannot be broken up.
Exercise 13.8
Change the following statements to information questions. Apply the two rules step by step.
We are leaving how soon.
Rule 1: We are leaving how soon. → How soon we are leaving.
Rule 2: How soon we are leaving. → How soon are we leaving?
1. They will finish on time how.
2. We should ask whom.
3. They are staying where.
4. The matter with him is what.
5. We can see her how soon.
6. They are staying how long.
7. They had planned to leave when.
8. The meetings are how long usually.
9. I should pay how much for it.
10. They would meet with us how often.
11. He had given what to them for Christmas that year.
12. We should care why what he thinks about it.
13. They would park the car where if the lot is closed.
14. Robert is doing what on earth in Cleveland.
15. We should call him what.
To this point we have only worked with information questions that have been formed with verbs that can be inverted: modal auxiliary verbs, helping verbs, and be as a main verb. Now we will look at information questions that require do. There is nothing actually different about these questions, except that having to insert do adds one more step to the process. Let us start again with the two movement rules:
1. Move the interrogative pronoun to the first position in the sentence.
2. Invert the verb and subject.
Between these two rules, we need to apply the do insertion rule. That is, we insert do before the first verb and transfer the tense of that first verb to do. We then apply Rule 2 in the normal way. Here is an example:
Statement: They left when.
Rule 1: When they left.
Do insertion: When they did leave.
Rule 2: When did they leave?
Note that did has picked up the past tense from left, causing left to revert back to its base form, leave.
Here are several more examples using the do insertion rule:
Statement: You want to go where.
Rule 1: Where you want to go.
Do insertion: Where you do want to go. (Note that do is in the present tense)
Rule 2: Where do you want to go?
Statement: They turned the offer down why.
Rule 1: Why they turned the offer down.
Do insertion: Why they did turn the offer down.
Rule 2: Why did they turn the offer down?
Statement: You called them how often about the meeting.
Rule 1: How often you called them about the meeting.
Do insertion: How often you did call them about the meeting.
Rule 2: How often did you call them about the meeting?
Exercise 13.9
Change the following statements to information questions using do insertion and the two movement rules.
I missed what.
Rule 1: What I missed.
Do insertion: What I did miss.
Rule 2: What did I miss?
1. They claimed how much in damages.
2. He demanded to see whom.
3. The decision depends on what.
4. Your cats reacted to your new dog how.
5. The kids want to do this weekend what.
6. You rented which movie.
7. She got to the office when.
8. Roberta picked whom for the advisory committee.
9. You think that you will pick whose health plan.
10. They plan to stay in Los Angeles how long.
The way information questions in English are formed differs in two important respects from the way information questions are formed in nearly all other languages. Most languages convert statements to information questions by moving an interrogative pronoun to the first position in the sentence. However, as you know, English also requires that the subject and verb be inverted and that we insert do if there is no other suitable helping verb to be the tense-carrying verb. Thus English requires two extra steps, both of which are complicated. Given that the process of forming information questions in English is both unusual and complicated, it is not surprising that mistakes in information questions are among the most common mistakes of nonnative speakers, even fluent ones who rarely make other kinds of mistakes. In the following examples, the subject noun phrase is in italics and the helping verb is in bold.
Error Standard
X Where you are going? Where are you going?
X When they will be back? When will they be back?
X What they have done? What have they done?
X Why he said that? Why did he say that?
All of these mistakes result from stopping the process of converting statements to information questions after doing only Rule 1: move the interrogative pronoun to the first position in the sentence. To correct these errors, speakers need to apply the do insertion rule (if necessary) and then, most critically, apply Rule 2 and invert the subject and the first, tense-carrying helping verb.
Exercise 13.10
Correct the errors in the left column and put the corrected form in the right column.
Error Standard
Why I should believe you? Why should I believe you?
1. When the program will start? ...
2. How I am doing?
3. What we have missed so far?
4. How much they are charging for it?
5. Why he had so much trouble?
6. How early we could finish here?
7. Where we sign up for the program?
8. Whose advice you are going to follow?
9. What song they were singing?
10. How many parts I should order now?
11. What subject you teach?
12. What the problem was with my phone?
13. How they will recognize you?
14. When they should take the test?
15. Why the government requires that form?
Up to this point we have ignored one type of information question: questions in which the interrogative pronoun plays the role of subject. Here are some examples with who playing the role of subject with all the different types of verbs:
Modal: Who can take the dog for a walk?
Who will take care of the children?
Helping verb: Who is working on the Smith papers?
Who has had lunch already?
Be as main verb: Who is the visitor?
Who was Alfred Smith?
No helping verb: Who reported the accident?
Who answered the phone?
As you can see, these information questions seem to break all the rules: there is no inversion of subject and helping verb, and in the last pair of examples, do is not used when there is no helping verb. Obviously, there is something special that happens when the interrogative pronoun plays the role of subject.
Basically, the two rules do not apply when the interrogative pronoun is the subject. To see why this is the case, let’s start with the following statement and try to apply the two rules:
Who should go next.
Rule 1 does not apply because the interrogative pronoun is already in the first position in the sentence. If we apply Rule 2, we will produce an ungrammatical question because we will put the subject after the verb as though we were trying to create some strange form of yes-no question:
X Should who go next?
Thus, we cannot apply either Rule 1 or Rule 2 when the interrogative pronoun is the subject of the sentence. When the interrogative pronoun plays the role of subject, the underlying statement is already in the correct final form for an information question and no further changes are needed (or even possible). Since only nouns can play the role of subject, the kinds of interrogative pronouns that can be subjects are necessarily limited to the following:
Nouns: who, what, which
Possessive nouns: whose, which + noun
Here are some more examples:
Nouns
Who told you the answer?
What do you mean by that?
Which is the right one?
Possessive nouns
Whose computer did you use?
Which train should we take?
A particularly difficult problem for native and nonnative speakers alike is choosing between who and whom in information questions. For example, which of the following is correct?
Who did you want to see?
Whom did you want to see?
To determine which one is correct, we have to undo Rule 1 and move the interrogative pronoun back to where it came from:
Rule 1: Who did you want to see? → You wanted to see who.
By undoing Rule 1 we can see that who is the object of the verb see. Since it is an object pronoun, we must use whom rather than who. Thus, the correct form of the information questions is
Whom did you want to see?
Here is a second example. Which of the following is correct?
Who wanted to see you?
Whom wanted to see you?
This is an easier question because there is no other noun besides who that is able to play the role of the subject of wanted. You, the only other noun in the sentence, is locked in place as the object of the verb see.
Exercise 13.11
Choose the correct form. If whom is the correct answer, rewrite the underlying sentence to show where whom came from.
1. (Who/Whom) did they nominate for the award?
2. (Who/Whom) did she draw a picture of?
3. (Who/Whom) has been waiting the longest?
4. (Who/Whom) was involved in the project?
5. (Who/Whom) had he been seeing before he met her?
6. (Who/Whom) should we send the invitations to?
7. (Who/Whom) will they trust the most, George or Fred?
8. (Who/Whom) could have taken the money?
9. (Who/Whom) do we give the money to?
10. (Who/Whom) have we not heard from recently?