Grammatical Summary

Word Order in Wh-Questions

Subject of Main Verb

As noted, a wh-question begins with a wh-word or phrase. If the wh-word or phrase is the subject of the main verb in the question, then the question has the same word order as an ordinary statement. An ordinary statement has the following word order for its three major grammatical structures:

In the following question (Q) and answer (A) pair, who is the subject in the question, and the management team is the subject in the answer. In both the question and the answer, the subject is followed by the verb developed, which is followed by the object phrase the company’s positioning statement.

Other Positions

If the questioned position is any other position than subject of the main verb, then the word order of the wh-question will be different from a typical statement. A wh-word or phrase appears at the beginning of the question to the left of the subject, followed by a "helping verb."

The helping verb will be some form of "auxiliary verb" (AUX) such as do (does, did, etc.), be (is, are, was, etc.), or have (has, had, etc.). Or it will be some form of "modal verb" (MODAL) such as will, can, might, should, etc. The subject of the question will then follow these elements.

The wh-question word order can be represented as below, where "WH" stands for a wh-word or phrase and the dots (…) stand for whatever elements follow the verb.

This word order is illustrated in the question of the following question/answer pair:

In this example, what represents the object of the verb develop. It is as if the word order of this question is OBJECT AUX SUBJECT VERB, which is very different from the word order of a statement. The answer to the question reflects the normal SUBJECT VERB OBJECT word order.

Other examples of wh-question word order are seen in the following questions:

The complexity of wh-question word order can be observed in these examples. In the last question, who actually represents the subject of the verb developed. An answer to this question illustrates this fact:

It will be seen that the different word order observed in English wh-questions, along with the use of various kinds of helping verbs, creates a special challenge for many deaf students.