Theorieblad QUESTIONS

Questions
1. Two kinds of questions

1. YES/NO QUESTIONS : = questions onto which the answer is « yes / no »

f.ex. Are you ready? – Yes, just about 1 minute!
Do you still love me? – Yes, I do.

2. QUESTION WORD QUESTIONS: = questions introduced by a question word
f.ex.
- What have you done?
- When is the bus leaving?
- Why are you sleeping now?
- How is your friend Joe?
- Whose bike is this?
- Who did you speak to yesterday?

2. How do we make questions ?

 There is an auxiliary in the sentence.
+ ? What did we do?
It is raining. Is it raining? Aux. comes in front of the subject.
I have slept very well. Have you slept very well?

 There is no auxiliary in the sentence.
+ ? What did we do?
Shops stay open until 8 pm Do shops stay open until…? We use a form of “to do” as auxiliary and put that in front of the subject.
She had lunch at 12 o’clock. When did she have lunch?

NOTES  PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING THINGS:

I. Make sure you use the same tense in the question as you used in the sentence, or as is used in the answer.
f.ex. David is wearing jeans  PRESENT CONTINUOUS  What is D. wearing?
Rik has slept very well  PRESENT PERFECT  Has R. slept very well?

II. 1 x S : Express the third person singular only once!
f.ex. David buys roses for his girlfriend.  What does D. buy(S) for his girlfriend?

III. 1 x PAST: Express the Simple Past only once!
f.ex. I worked until 10 pm yesterday.  When did you work(ED) until 10 pm?

3. Who & What as a Subject

Ken loves Amy.
POSSIBILITY 1 to make a question POSSIBILITY 2 to make a question
Who loves Amy? Who does Ken love?
= WHO is the subject of the sentence  we don’t need the aux. “to do” to make a question.  word order stays the same = WHO is the object of the sentence  we make a question in a normal way (= + aux. “to do”)  aux. comes in front of subject
The dog bit Jane.
POSSIBILITY 1 to make a question POSSIBILITY 2 to make a question
What bit Jane? Who did the dog bite?
= WHAT is the subject of the sentence  we don’t need the aux. “to do” to make a question.  word order stays the same = WHO is the object of the sentence  we make a question in a normal way (= + aux. “to do”)  aux. comes in front of subject

4. Prepositions in questions

f.ex. These students come from Belgium.  Where do these students come from?
They are talking about the teacher.  Who are they talking about?
= prepositions come @ the end of the question.

5. How.... OR What...like ?

We use “how” to ask about things that change. How is Joe? – He is very well, thank you.
We use “what…like” to ask about things that don’t change. What is Joe like? – He’s tall and good-looking, a bit shy.

6. What.... OR Which…. ?

We use “what” when there is a wide range of choice of answers. What sport do you play?  There are lots of different sports.
We use “which” when there is a limited number of possible answers. Which way do we go here?  There are only two ways to go: left or right.