Questions in English are usually formed by either inverting the verb and subject, or by adding an auxiliary verb before the subject (and putting the main verb in bare infinitive form). This form is normally followed whether we use question words or not. However, question words can replace either an object or a subject in sentences – and when this happens, questions may be formed without inverting the verb or adding an auxiliary verb. If that sounds complicated, here’s some examples to explain.
Regular question forms
When we are asking a yes/no question, or looking for information about an object (i.e. what does the verb the subject is engaged in do/do to), we either add an auxiliary verb and put the verb into bare infinitive form:
- I like dancing. -> Do you like dancing?
- He completed his homework. -> Did he complete his homework?
Or, for verb forms that already use an additional verb (such as to have in perfect tenses, and to be in continuous forms), we simply invert the subject and verb:
- She is swimming in the sea. -> Is she swimming in the sea?
- They have used all the paper. -> Have they used all the paper?
- It had been sitting there for hours. -> Had it been sitting there for hours?
These forms are exactly the same when we add question words, the question word simply comes at the beginning of the question:
- Why do you like dancing?
- How did he complete his homework?
- Where is she swimming?
- What have they used?
- How long had it been sitting there for?
Note that all of these questions ask about additional information in the sentences – they are not questions about who or what did the verb.
Subject Questions
Subject questions are used to ask who or what was engaged in the main verb. They follow a different form to regular questions, because the question word replaces the subject. Their form is actually simpler than regular questions, as you just have to replace the subject with a question word and add a question mark.
- I like dancing. -> Who likes dancing?
- He completed his homework. -> Who completed his homework?
- It had been sitting there for hours. -> What had been sitting there for hours?
These questions are used to ask about the subject, not the object.
The only complication here is that question words can change the conjugation of the verb. Generally if we do not know the subject, and we ask a question with who or what, then the verb should be conjugated in the third person form. So a first person singular statement becomes a third person question:
- We love this movie. -> Who loves this movie?
For third person statements this will make no difference to conjugation.
- The car is parked outside. -> What is parked outside?
Subject questions can be singular or plural, so be careful of the context!
- What is that thing?
- What are those things?
Hi! I like your site but please,can you explain questions in the future?
Thanks.
Hi,
Questions in the future will usually use inversion, where we place the first verb before the subject, for the ‘will’ and ‘going to’ forms. We don’t need to add an auxiliary as they already have auxiliaries (will / to be). E.g.
I will go home later.
Will you go home later?
I am going to drink tea.
What are you going to drink?
When using the present tense for future meaning questions can be formed like with the present tense.
The train arrives at 5 o’clock.
What time does the train arrive?
I am playing tennis this afternoon.
What are you doing this afternoon?
This is rather brief, but I hope it helps!
Phil
Excellent information I like it very much bcos I am trying to make conversation more and more simple
Super B!
Peace be upon you!
What country he belongs to?
Which country he belongs to?
What country does he belong to?
I am stuck on which one is correct and why.
Could you explain?
Hi Fahad, “What country does he belong to?” is correct because we add “do/does” before a bare infinitive (belong) to form a present simple question.
Can we use ‘Which country does he belong to?’
Hi Jaleel, yes, but it would be more natural to ask “Where is he from?” or “What nationality is he?”
Hi
Sometimes question isn’t a subject question but still we don’t have auxiliary for example:
How you love to hate me?
Would you please explain it?
Hi Fateme, if you’ve heard the question phrased like that then it is colloquial, not sticking to proper grammar – it should have an auxiliary, “How do you love to hate me?” (More accurately would probably be ‘Why do…’, or if we’re asking for an amount/degree, ‘How much do…’; it might also be ‘How is it that you love…’)
In spoken English, depending on regional and cultural variations, the auxiliaries are often dropped in this way, but we can trace back to what the sentence would look like with complete grammar.
Hello!
Let’s suppose my friend says sonthing wrong and I want to correct him, can I ask “You mean next weekend?” or “You mean next weekend, right?”.
Is it necessary to use the question form in these kind of sentences in an informal conversation too?
Hi Juliana,
Yes you can use tag questions like that, that’s fine – conversationally we often talk that way.
Thank you!
Is the question -Whose car stopped near the house? a correct one? If so, what’s the rule to explain why there’s no auxiliary verb after the question word?
Hi Elen,
Yes that question does work – it works the same way as the subject questions described in this article, we are asking for the subject information “whose car” – so it could be answered with a subject such as “Fred’s car” – and you would have the same result as described above: “[Fred’s car] stopped near the house.” / “[Whose car] stopped near the house?”
It is a bit different as the important detail we’re asking for is the possessive noun/pronoun so we might answer without the complete subject, “Fred’s”, but the principle is the same, and grammatically we are replacing the missing information with a question word “Whose”.
I hope this helps!
Phil
Hi
Can you tell me that am i a boy? what is am in here is this auxiliary verb or ordinary
It’s the wrong way round, and should be “I am”, and is the ordinary use of ‘be’ to describe a state.
Thanks for your helpful information! It helps to understand better now! I hope I will use these with more practice.
You’re welcome Gwen, I’m glad it helps!
Hi ,
i encountered some sentences that i can sense no fault in but at the same time their usage of ‘be’ quite baffles me . im curious as to what the grammatical reasoning behind it is . is it grammatically correct to use be on its own without the support of auxiliary verb or being stated in peremptory way [ when it’s not imperative ] ?
here is an example :
Models of democracy that have been constructed on the basis of liberal individualism have usually proposed that
democracy *be* restricted to political life
Hi Tema,
That is a difficult one and I can see the confusion – it’s quite a formal construction, and there’s two things going on that might make it tricky. Firstly, it is to do with using the verb “propose” which can be followed with a bare infinitive when we follow it with an instructive clause, e.g. “I propose that he study more.” So the “be” here is a bare infinitive because it is part of the proposal. However, it is also not being used on its own here – “be” is the auxiliary being used as a passive construction, along with “restrict” – “be restricted”. So it is actually being used to make democracy, the object of the verb “restrict”, the subject of the clause.
I’m not sure if I have a passive tenses article on the site somewhere, possibly! But this one about recognising the verbs that follow the verb “to be” might help, if you click here.
The fog is getting clearer by the minute . you are a great help , thank you !
You are welcome, I’m glad it helps!
Another example ;
His solution , advanced in the Republic ,was that government ‘be ‘placed in the hands of a class of philosopher kings .
This is the same case as the previous one, that again the ‘be’ is being used to form a passive construction. Actually, now that you move onto another verb from ‘propose’ I should clarify that the reason we had the bare infinitive before is the mood of this clause; it is in the subjunctive as a suggested/proposed action. You can learn more about there here.
If I want to ask the people who work in a place, which one is correct? who works there? or who work there?
“Who works there?” – though good question, it would be worth an extra article covering the conjugation for question words!
Phil
Hi
“Who did write the book? ”
Is this always a wrong question ?
Hi Nas,
No this is not wrong – the standard/neutral question form is without the auxiliary, but we can still ask simple questions with “do/did” to add emphasis. Usually, we do this to clarify the subject which did something in contrast to confirming a subject which did not do it. For example:
1: I didn’t write this book.
2: Then who did write it?
I hope this explains it?
Phil
Who you are
How you got to know about him
How you found his address
Your best wishes to him
we don’t see any auxiliaries used with above questions with how… may I know why
Hi Nawshard, the simple is answer is that these are not complete/correct grammatical questions. As fragments, they might work as indirect questions, but on their own they should have auxiliaries – e.g. “How did you find his address?”
Thank you very much! I was stuck with: Which countries produce the most wine? I instinctively knew about subject questions but couldn’t actuallly explain them.
Great, I’m glad it helped!
And how about this question: “You call this work?” Is it correct? Why or why not? Could you please explain that?
Hi Catalina, yes this is fine as what we call a tag question – where a statement is made a question by adding a question mark (in writing) or with rising inflection (in speaking). It essentially asks the listener to confirm or deny the statement. In this case, though, it would likely be rhetorical (not expecting an answer).
Hello Phil!!
What about this kind of question:
Want a new car?
Want a new job?
The “do” is not there, but is this construction wrong?
I use this in informal questions, but I really wanna know if it is wrong or not.
Thanks A LOT! 😉
Hi Anaalsan,
Good question – this is an informal construction, it’s not strictly grammatical but certainly isn’t wrong in spoken English; we quite commonly leave out the auxiliary and subject when asking questions casually, particularly when posing an offer (e.g. “Want a cup of tea?”). As well as in spoken English, it’s quite common in advertising or announcements, as it’s quite a snappy and arresting way to pose a question (in fact, I use it in my own book adverts, e.g. “Want to master the English tenses?”!)
Phil
Hi Phil!
Could you please help me?
In subject question like “What was your dream?” the word “was” is auxiliary, right?
Is that true that the words BE, HAVE are always auxiliary, even in sentence “He is in Spain”?
Hi Vicky,
No problem – actually this is quite a confusing area, because “to be” is not always an auxiliary verb, but it can behave in the same way as an auxiliary verb in simple questions. For simple statements (i.e. not continuous or perfect sentences), “to be” does not require an auxiliary, it just moves to form a question where “to do” would form the auxiliary otherwise.
He was tall. -> Was he tall?
However, for perfect sentences we would still need an auxiliary “to have” with “to be”:
She was in France. -> She had been in France.
In continuous sentences though, “to be” is used as auxiliary, yes, so does not require an additional verb when forming questions.
“have”, on the other hand, is not an auxiliary at all when used as the verb meaning to possess, it is only an auxiliary in perfect sentences. E.g.
She has a bicycle. -> Does she have a bicycle? (Not an auxiliary, requires “to do” to form a question)
She has seen this film. -> Has she seen this film? (Auxiliary, does not require an extra verb for a question)
I hope this helps!
Phil
Hi, Phil!
May I ask you?
In Past Simple we use DID as auxilary verb in questions, but in sentence “When were/Were you born in 2005?” we don`t use DID, just because we already have “to be” as auxilary. Well, why sometimes we don`t use “to do” as auxilary?
I have a different question. I want to know whether or not we should use a question mark after the question – Why Choose Us
Please explain in both cases (yes and no)
Typically we wouldn’t have a question mark as it’s not likely to be presented as an actual question. If it is a question, it might be rhetorical, leading directly into the answer (“Why choose us? Let me tell you…”), but more likely this would be used as a headline or title, where the rules are bent (as you can see more of here: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/8-grammar-rules-writing-newspaper-headlines/).
As a title, it would be intended less as a question than a statement of what is going to be answered. To clarify, I would expect it to lead into the answer in a manner that carries the meaning “Here is why you should choose us”, but this is abridged to “Why Choose Us”, explaining why it’s not really a question.
That said, it certainly wouldn’t be incorrect to frame such a title with a question mark, Why Choose Us?, which alternatively presents the title as pre-empting what the reader might be asking.
I hope this helps!
Phil
Hi, Phil!
I need your help.
Usually, we use “to be” as auxilary verb:
“Did you visit your parents last weekend?”
But why in some questions like “Were you born in 2005?” we use “to be” as auxilary? As I know, we have rule, where in questions and negations in Past Simple we use “did”. So when we use “to be” and when we don`t and why?
Hi Dora,
I’m so sorry for the very slow reply, I missed this comment. This relates to when we use the verb “to be” in general; wherever we use the verb “to be” in a statement, we do not need to add “to do” in question form, as “to be” works in the place of an auxiliary verb.
It’s not a question I’ve dug into the why of before, but essentially it’s because “to do” is an auxiliary that highlights an action to complete a question, whereas “to be” relates to states/conditions, not actions – we do not “do being”, we just “are” (i.e. You do an action, You are in a state). Hence we don’t ask, “Do you be?”, we ask “Are you?” If that makes sense/helps!
This is also why we don’t need to add an auxiliary in the continuous tenses, as we can form the question with the “to be” in “am/are/is doing”.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Thanks for your site and the information you provide. Wouldn’t it be easier to explain that ‘be born’ is using the passive voice?
A fellow English Teacher
Hi Gloria,
Good question; that is one way of looking at it but I don’t think it would give the complete answer, as overall the passive voice follows the wider structure of the way we use ‘to be’ with states/conditions, where the verb that’s done to the object is treated as if it were a state/condition. For example “Were you pushed?” is passive, and “Were you tired?” questions a state, but I’d suggest they both follow the same essential form, and can effectively be seen as ‘to be’ demonstrating a certain condition for the subject, as even in the passive we’re considering the subject being affected, not doing an action themselves. If that makes sense? The point I’m trying to get to is that the use of ‘to be’ in this way is broader than the passive use, and not just limited to the passive voice, so I think it’s quite helpful to consider it in that wider view.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Yes, that makes sense. However, since I work with middle school students, sometimes too much information confuses them even more. So I try to focus only on the specific question that comes up. Thanks again! Gloria
Yes that’s fair – and in a classroom setting simpler is generally best! But yes, it’ll just depend on the specific question and context, for what is the simplest and clearest answer.
Phil