English grammar drills part 34 potx

To form a yes-no question, we must use the dummy helping verb do.. For example: Statement Inverted yes-no question In British English, however, have can also be treated like the main ve

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

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

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

Have we a problem? Do we have a problem?

1 You have a glass

2 The car has a fl at 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

conver-sational 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

conver-sational 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?

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.

You are taking a break ∅ You taking a break?

1 The group is working on it

2 They are redoing the offi ce again

3 We have been opening new stores

4 You can locate the Smith fi le

5 The cat is staring at the goldfi sh

6 You have been sleeping badly lately

7 They should try to fi nish 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

ques-tions because (unlike yes-no quesques-tions) they begin with interrogative pronouns that ask for

spe-cifi c 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:

Whom did you meet?

What, which Noun phrase What did you fi nd?

Which did you pick?

Whose, which Possessive Whose book is on the desk?

Noun phrase Which book do you want?

Why Adverb of reason Why do you want to go there?

In addition, there are a number of interrogatives compounded with how All of these are

adverbs For example:

How long Length in time/space How long will you stay?

How much Quantity How much does it cost to go 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

Adv of

frequency

How often do you come here?

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 fi nally 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

form-ing information questions is to move the interrogative pronoun to the fi rst position in the

sen-tence (unless it was already in the fi rst 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

place

We should eat where.

Here the interrogative pronoun where originates as an adverb of place following the verb eat.

We change this underlying statement into something approximating the fi nal 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 fi rst 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 fi nal 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 fi rst position in the sentence

2 Invert the verb and subject

Here are some more examples showing the application of the two rules:

Adv

Underlying statement: They will be back when.

Rule 1: They will be back when ⇒ When they will be back.

Rule 2: When they will be back ⇒ When will they be back?

frequency

Underlying statement: You have seen it how often.

Rule 1: You have seen it how often ⇒ How often you have seen it.

Rule 2: How often you have seen it ⇒ How often have you seen it?

NP

Underlying statement: We should give them what.

Rule 1: We should give them what ⇒ What we should give them.

Rule 2: What we should give them ⇒ What should we give them?

Underlying statement: That is whose car.

Rule 1: That is whose car ⇒ Whose car that is.

Rule 2: Whose car that is ⇒ Whose car is that?

Note that the possessive noun whose can never be separated from car, the word whose modifi es

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 fi nish on time how.