a study on structural and semantic patterns of wh-questions in english = nghiên cứu về mô hình cấu trúc và ngữ nghĩa của câu hỏi có từ hỏi trong tiếng anh

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN VĂN CƯƠNG A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MÔ HÌNH CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÂU HỎI

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN VĂN CƯƠNG

A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS

OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MÔ HÌNH CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÂU HỎI

CÓ TỪ HỎI TRONG TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

HANOI, 2011

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN VĂN CƯƠNG

A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS

OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MÔ HÌNH CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÂU HỎI

CÓ TỪ HỎI TRONG TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr VÕ ĐẠI QUANG

HANOI, 2011

The thesis entitled “A Study on structural and semantic patterns of

Wh-questions in English” is to analyze and illustrate the types of wh-Wh-questions and their

semantic features This one is also to investigate the students' categories of mistakes when using wh-questions, find out the causes, suggest some possible solutions to these matters, and propose several pedagogical implications for the teachers at the research site This study is divided into three major sections The first one sets out the rationale of the study as well as the aims, the methodology and the design of the study The second section contains three chapters Chapter 1 offers the most relevant factors involving a wh-question such as notions of wh-questions, wh-rhetorical questions, operators, wh-words and their semantic features relating information structure, presupposition and theme and rheme Chapter 2 is

to describe the types of wh-questions based on structures and discourse and the types of presuppositions in wh-questions Chapter 3 is the study about the mistakes that the students

in Kinh Mon high school often make in using a wh-question The data were collected among 100 eleven grade students in Kinh Mon high school by means of questionnaires The findings highlighted students’ categories of mistakes including wrong use of wh-words, wrong use of operators, non-inversion failure and some other subtypes Through the findings, the author also assumes some causes of the mistakes and suggests some possible solutions in order to help students avoid committing these types of mistakes

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Retention i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of tables vii

Part 1: Introduction 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Objectives of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

Part 2: Development 4

Chapter 1 : Literature review 4

1.1 English questions .4

1.1.1 Definition of question 4

1.1.2 Definition of Wh-questions in English 5

1.1.2.1 Wh-information question 5

1.1.2.2 Wh-rhetorical questions 6

1.2 English operators 6

1.3 Question words 7

1.3.1 Wh-word functions 7

1.3.1.1 Wh-words as interrogative pronouns 7

1.3.1.2 Wh-words as determiners 10

1.3.1.3 Wh-words as adverbs 10

1.4 Given - New Information Structure 12

1.4.1 Given information 12

1.4.2 New information 12

1.4.3 Information structure 12

1.5 Theme -Rheme Structure 13

1.5 Theme- Rheme Structure in wh-questions 14

1.6 Presupposition 15

Chapter 2 : The structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions .16

2.1 STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS 16

2.1.1 Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions 16

2.1.2 Non-subject wh-questions 18

2.1.3 Verb-oriented questions 19

2.1.4 Wh-questions with prepositions 20

2.1.5 Emphatic wh-questions .21

2.1.6 Negative structures in Wh- questions 21

2.1.7 Response questions 21

2.1.7.1 Short response questions 21

2.1.7.2 Wh-echo questions 22

2.1.8 Multiple wh-element Questions 23

2.1.9 Wh-rhetorical questions 24

2.1.10 Formulaic wh-questions 26

2.2 SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS 28

Chapter 3: Errors made by eleventh grade students in using wh-questions 31

3.1 Introduction 31

3.2.Setting 31

3.2.1 Setting of the study 31

3.2.2 Participants 31

3.3 Research instrument - Questionnaire 32

3.2.1 Objectives of the survey questionaire 32

3.2.2 The Survey questionnaire 32

3.4 Procedures 33

3.5 Findings 33

3.5.1 Wrong use of wh-word 35

3.5.2 Wrong use of operator 37

3.5.3 Non-inversion failure 39

3.5.4 Other types 40

3.6 The causes of Vietnamese students’ mistakes 41

3.7 Solutions to the problems 42

3.8 Summary of findings 43

PART 3: CONCLUSION 44

1 Conclusions 44

2 Implications of the study for teaching English wh-questions 45

3 Limitations of the study 45

4 Suggestions for further research 46

REFERENCES 47 APPENDIX I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The number and percentage of each category of mistake

Table 2: Number and percentage of mistakes concerning the use of wh-word Table 3: Number and percentage of misused operators

Table 4: Number and percentage of inversion mistakes

Table 5: Number and percentage of other types of mistakes

Part 1: Introduction

1 Rationale

It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and more Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study and their future The ability to communicate clearly and efficiently in English contributes to the success

of the learners at school and later in every phase of life However, the sad fact is that students‟ English proficiency especially their ability to communicate in English orally does not really meet employers‟ demand

At Kinh Mon High School, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science and technology However, there still exist many difficulties facing the students They often keep quiet during speaking lessons; they mind speaking English There are many students who have good knowledge of grammar, can do reading and writing exercises wonderfully but they cannot express themselves in English and find it hard to make questions

to discuss during the speaking lessons They often make mistakes in using the correct question words and in giving the right form of a wh-question

Besides making the discussion during a speaking lesson successful, questions also play

an important role in our daily life We are not able to keep communicating going on well without asking questions We ask in order to exchange information, ideas, feeling and knowledge On the other hand, we sometimes ask questions not for the above purposes but for confirmation, refusal irony or reply avoidance It is undeniable that questions can not be missed in communication

English wh-questions have long been the subject of the study of many researchers and linguists Each of them investigates some aspects of this type of questions Their study on English wh-questions have provided a great help for Vietnamese learners of English There are some MA thesis that pay attention to English Wh-questions Hoa N.T.X (1996) studies English questions in terms of S-P inversion Meanwhile, Ms Nguyet D.T.M (1996) pays her attention to the aspect of English questions concerning teachers' questions and politeness strategies And Tuyet L.T.A contrasts English wh-questions and their equivalents in

Vietnamese in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features Especially there is also a Ph.D dissertation investigating English Wh-questions Quang V.D (2000) looks at contrative analysis of questions in English and Vietnamese in terms of semantic and pragmatic features

in his Ph.D project Generally, such researchers mentioned above studied English questions from different angles and mostly either focus on syntactic and semantic features of English Wh-questions or provide a theoretically general picture of wh-questions between the two languages, English and Vietnamese However, besides such certain contributions, there still exist some gaps that need dealing with

wh-There are a lot of aspects concerning English wh-questions, however, in this paper the

author would like to devote all my interest in the structural and semantic patterns of

Wh-questions in English Then he would like to investigate the kinds of mistakes in using

wh-questions the students in Kinh Mon High School often make Basing on the findings, the author can make some suggestions in order to help the students to overcome these difficulties

and make questions fluently

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are to:

- help raise the students' awareness of structural and semantic features of English

wh-questions

- deepen the author's knowledge for the improvement of teaching English wh-questions to Vietnamese learners of English

3 Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are to :

- examine the structural and semantic patterns of English Wh-questions

- identify some common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese students and present some suggested solutions

The objectives of the study can be realized through the research questions:

1 What are the structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions?

2 What categories of mistakes do the students in Kinh Mon High school often make in using English wh-questions?

3 What should be done to improve the students' skill in using English wh-questions?

It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to teachers and students at Kinh Mon high school

4 Scope of the study

The study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh-questions in English focuses on

English wh-questions from the perspectives of structural and semantic features There are two

types of wh-questions will be focused: wh-information questions and wh-rhetorical questions

The author also conducted a questionnaire to find out the mistakes made by Vietnamese students, and from these mistakes, some possible solutions to the problems identified

5 Methods of the study

A combination of different methods of analysis will be used in this study Firstly, the author applies the descriptive method to find out the structural and semantic patterns of the English wh-questions The study is conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources to have full-blown information of English wh-questions Secondly, the author designs

a questionaire in order to find out what categories of mistakes the studetnts often make when using wh-questions The students' errors and mistakes will be analized All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis

The sheets of questionaire will be collected randomly so that this research will help to gain reliable data and a close investigation into the problems that the students are encountering

6 Design of the study

This study is divided into three main parts:

- Part 1 is the Introduction of the study It includes the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the objectives, the scope, the methods and design of the study

- Part 2 contains three chapters, in which Chapter 1 provides readers some theoretical background on English questions in general, wh-words and their functions and the

operators and their functions in English question in brief Moreover, some basic terms (

such as given and new information, theme and rheme, and presuppositions ) are also

discussed Chapter 2 is also the main part of the study, provides the detailed analysis of English wh-questions in term of structural and semantic patterns of wh-questions in English Chapter 3 presents a small research of the author to find out some common mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using English wh-questions and to suggest some possible solutions

- Part 3 is the conclusion of the study It also gives some implication for teaching and learning wh-questions and some suggestions for further studies

Part 2: Development Chapter 1 : Literature review

This chapter deals with the relevant matters in wh-questions to help language learners understand how to use English wh-questions effectively The relevant matters are:

- The operators and their functions

- Question words and how they are used

- Given and new information

- Theme and rheme in wh-questions

al ( 1970 and 1985) defines a question as a semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject

And another linguist, Givón (1990), observes that languages employ at least three, exclusive, devices to signal a question:

non-(i) intonation;

(ii), the addition of morphology or independent lexical items ("Q-markers");

(iii), a different word-order 1

Moreover, Quirk ( 1978) states that an utterance can be called a question if it fulfills one of the following criteria; the operator is placed in front of the subject, an interrogative or wh-element takes the initial position or intonation is raised at the end of the utterance

1 http://vietnamese-grammar.group.shef.ac.uk/grammar_en.php?ID=16

1.1.2 Definition of Wh-questions in English

According to Quirk et al ( 1978), wh-questions are formed with the aid of one of the following interrogative words ( or wh-words or sometimes called wh-elements)

This type of question is known as a wh-question because such a question begins with one of a series of words beginning with wh- These include who, whom, whose, which, where, when,

why and how, although how does not begin with wh-

Unlike yes-no questions, wh-questions generally have falling intonation However,

they sometimes have rising tone, which concerns the interest in the answer

A wh-question is often formed according to the following rule

- the wh- elelment ( ie the clause element containing the wh-word) come first in the sentence apart from some conjuncts such as on the other hand

- the wh-word itself takes first position in the wh-element However, in more formal style, the

preposition precedes the complement

For questions that are seeking information, you place an interrogative-word before the inversion, such as:

E.g 1 What are you studying?

The answer here will be the 'what', and you should see that in the statement form (of a full

answer), this information replaces the interrogative pronoun and becomes the object:

I am studying English

Because all you are asking for is the 'what', you can also give a very short answer:

What are you studying? English

1.1.2.1 Wh-information questions

A question is an open question ( i.e it can have any number of answers) In a question, a search for a missing piece of information, the element that functions as theme

wh-called wh-element requests this information This element expresses the nature of missing

piece; " who, what, when, how, etc." So in a wh-interrogative, the wh-element is put first no

matter what functions it has in the mood structure of the clause like: subject, adjunct, conjunct

or complement, etc The meaning is I want to tell you the person, thing, time, manner,etc

Unlike yes/no questions, wh-information questions always contain a presupposition For instance, when we ask the question " What did John do?" we presume that John did in fact

do something

2a How did they do it? They did it somehow

2b Where did John go? John went somewhere

2c Whose book was stolen? Someone's book was stolen

2d What has he done? He has done something

2e Who is doing it? Someone is doing it

1.1.2.2 Wh-rhetorical questions

Sometimes a question using a wh-word is a rhetorical question Rhetorical questions

take the form of questions, but they are not really used for seeking information In fact they do not expect an answer at all In many cases they are simply expressing a strong opinion or feeling of the part of the speaker, rather than expecting a response from the person they are speaking to:

E.g 1 Who does she think she is? She had no right to use my computer

2 What on earth do you think you are doing? It's my private land

1.2 English operators

In a wh-question, the wh-word is often followed by a verb and this verb sometimes

takes the form of a modal verb such as can, could, may, might, etc, or an auxiliary verb, such

as do, be or have, etc

These modal verbs or auxiliaries are called operators Operator is the term that is given to the

part of the verbal group that comes before the split in a question

E.g 1 Is the little girl sleeping?

2 Does she still love you?

3 How long have you been waiting for me?

In the three examples above, Is, Does and have are the operators Operators are very

necessary when we want to form a question In an English question, there is often the

inversion of subject and the operator If there is no auxiliary in the statement, do is introduced

as the operator in the question Lexical be and have in British English can also act as the

operator:

E.g 1 What do you often do in your free time?

2 How are the students?

3 What have you here?

1.3 Question words

Question words are often introduced by wh-form A question word is used to ask for a

supply to the missing information They are called wh- question words because they generally begin with wh-, with an exception being How The wh-word may be a pronoun, an adverb, or a determiner ( i.e it introduces a noun phrase) The question words are who, whom, whose,

which, what, where, when, why, and how

1.3.1 Wh-word functions

1.3.1.1 Wh-words as interrogative pronouns

Wh-words in questions can be called interrogative pronouns because these two kinds

of pronouns share some charactiristics According to Quirk ( 1978), both of them are used to replace nouns, rather whole noun phrases, since they can not generally occur with determiners such as the definite article or premodification He also states that there are five wh-words can

be used as pronouns such as who, whom, whose, what, and which

Who, whom and whose are subjective, objective, and genitive case forms respectively,

and have personal gender However, what and which do not have gender or case distinction

They can be used to ask questions about not only persons but about things

As a pronoun, the interrogative pronouns can be used as the subjects, objects of the questions

Most of the interrogative pronouns can act as the subjects of the wh-questions except

whom, even whose can also appear alone as an anaphoric noun phrase:

E.g 1 Who taught you some Italian?

2 Which is his father's car?

3 What happened?

4 Whose won?

Who, whom, which, and what can be used as an object of a verb or a prepositional

complement

E.g 5 Who(m) did you meet at the party last night?

6 Which do you want to buy, this one or that one?

7 What did your friend give you yesterday?

However, when used as an object, whom is considered to be more formal and only whom can normally follow the preposition In daily conversations, who is normally used

E.g 8 To whom are you writing?

9 Who are you writing to?

10 Whom are you writing to?

Both who and whom can take initial position, as in (9) and (10), leaving the preposition

deferred at the end of the clause

Unlike who, whom, what can be used both with personal and non-personal reference However, when used to refer to people what as a pronoun is limited to questions about

profession, role, status,etc

E.g 11 A: What's the man overthere?

B: He's a doctor

As a pronoun, what acts as a head of a noun phrase to identify certain kinds of property,

profession, religion, race, nationality, etc

E.g 12 A: What's your address?

B: It's 52 Quang Trung, Hai Duong

13 What is your nationality?

B: I'm Vietnamese

14 A: What is your father doing now?

B: He's repairing my old bike

15 A: What was the concert like last night?

B: It was great

What can occur in prepositional complements with the preposition either in intitial or in final

(deferred) position; but with an initial preposition, the construction is formal and rather rare

E.g 16 What are they looking for?

17 About what are they talking?

Quirk (1978) divides interrogative pronouns into two subtypes: Indefinite and definite

interrogatives Who and which can be used to refer to persons while what and which are used

to refer to things

E.g 18 Who is the most famous footballer in your country?

19 Which is the most famous footballer, Hong Son, Huynh Duc or Cong Minh?

20 What is your favourite book?

21 Which do you prefer, this book or that one?

In the example 18, who is used as an indefinite interrogative pronoun which refers to person

In this question, the addresser does not refer to any footballer in particular He asks a general

question Which in question 19 refers to person and which in question 21 refers to things However, both of them refer to limited choice Which here implies limited number of footballers or books And what in question 20 is used in general, too

1.3.1.2 Wh-words as determiners

According to Quirk ( 1978), the three question words whose, what and which can be used as a

determiner Therefore, they can introduce a personal as well as a non-personal noun phrase:

E.g 1 Whose house is that?

2 What colour is your car?

3 Which coat is yours, this one or that one?

Like the interrogative pronouns (which and what), what is used as an indefinite determiner and

which serves as a definite determiner These two determiners have both personal and

non-personal reference

Interrogative determiners with personal nouns:

E.g 4a What pop singer do you like best?

4b Which pop singer do you like best, My Linh or Hong Nhung?

Interrogative determiners with non-personal nouns:

E.g 5a What kind of mobile phone are you using?

5b Which kind of mobile phone are you using, Nokia or Samsung?

In the pairs above, which implies that the choice is made from a limited number of alternatives which exist in the context of discussion The alternatives are often made explicit

Sometimes, which can be used without being made explicit However, in that case the speaker

who asks such question assumes that there is a definite set of alternatives from which a choice can be made

E.g 6 Which T-shirt would you like to try on?

In this case, a shop keeper wishes to ask a customer who wants to try on a T-shirt in a fashion shop

1.3.1.3 Wh-word as adverbs

After having deeply researched wh-pronouns, I would like to consider the next open word clauses, that is adverb According to Huddleston ( 1984) " an adverb is traditionally defined as a word that modifies a verb, an object or an adverb."

Where and When

As an adverb, where and when occur as head of a phrase and function as complement

of goal or complement/ adjunct of a place:

E.g 1 Where are you going for this summer vacation?

2 When did he start his work yesterday?

Moreover, they can be found in some cases in noun phrases which act as subjects:

E.g 1 When would be most suitable for you?

2 Where would be good for your holiday?

Why - an adverb

We often find that the wh-word why often heads a phrase which functions as an adjunct of a

reason It is often used to ask about a reason or a purpose of an action:

E.g 1 Why did you give him that book?

2 Why were you absent from the class yesterday morning?

How - an adverb ( degree or manner) or an adjective

We often use How to ask about the manner or degree It can also be used with an adjective to

ask about the quality of something

E.g 1 How did he complete his work?

2 How old is your new English teacher?

1.4 Given-New Information Structure

1.4.1 Given information

Given information is a linguistic term that Halliday (1976) uses to define the information that " expresses what the speaker is presenting as information that is recoverable from some source or other in the environment - the situation or the preceding text." Moreover, according to Kuno (1972), " given information is an element in a sentence that represents old, predictable information." A given piece of information is common knowledge, a part of the extralinguistic context or something that is previously established in the discourse

Given information can also be identified in term of intonation It is also spoken with little stress and it is often reduced, abbreviated or ellipsed Most kinds of discourse have implicit speakers and addressees, interactors always take first and second speaker pronouns to

be given information

1.4.2 New information

Halliday (1976) defines new information according to recoverability He predicts that

"what is labeled new is information that the speaker presents as not being recoverable from the preceding discourse." And Kuno also identifies new information basing on its predictability

He states that " new information is something that can not be predicted." Therefore, we can say that new information is information that is assumed by the addresser NOT

- to be known to/assumed by the addressee

- previously established in the discourse

New information is usually stressed and expressed in more elaborate fashions

1.4.3 Information structure

The ability to understand a sentence or a text depends on the order of the information

In both spoken and written language, given or old information should put in front of new information or we can say the given information is placed in the left side of the sentence or in the theme position and new information follows the given, or known information

The information structure should obey the following rules

- Sentences should begin with the information already introduced to the reader

This is achieved through beginning a sentence with words or phrases from the preceding sentence

- Sentences should end with new information that is unfamiliar to the reader This new information can then become the given information in the next sentence 2

1.5.1 Theme-Rheme Structure

Theme and Rheme are the fundamental structural patterns in the English language According to Halliday ( 1994) "Theme is indicated by its position in the clause In writing English we signal that an item has thematic status by putting it first No other signal is necessary "

For example, in small context such as a simple sentence, theme and rheme can be described as followed

E.g 1 My father has given up smoking

My father has given up smoking

In the sentence above, the theme of the sentence is the subject my father and the rheme

is the rest of the sentence ( the predicate) The subject is what we are talking about and the predicate is what we say about it However, the theme is not always the subject of the sentence Let's consider the following example

E.g 2 Once upon a time, an old man and his wife lived on the shore of the blue sea

In this sentence, the expression Once upone a time is the theme but it does not correspond to the subject which is an old and his wife We can make this clearer graphically

Once upon a time an old man and his wife lived on the shore of the blue

sea Adjunct Subject Predicate

Theme Rheme

2 source : www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Old_before_New.pdf

Therefore, we can see that the Theme does not always correspond to the grammatical subject of

(Halliday 1995: 37) 3

Summing up, we can say that English sentences start with a Theme, the first element in the sentence, which normally contains information which we somehow know about and that they

continue with a Rheme, which normally tells us something new about the Theme

1.5.2 Theme and Rheme in wh-questions

We have been saying that the function of Theme is to indicate “that with which the clause is concerned” Clearly questions are, usually, concerned with getting informattion or answers, so in

a sentence like:

1 When did Mary buy the car?

The Theme is made up of the wh-element The wh-element is that the speaker wants to know When did Mary buy the car?

The wh-word can stand on its own, or the whole wh-phrase may make up the Theme

What kind of book did you give your daughter on her last birthday?

Theme Rheme

3

http://www.unisi.it/gofolwww/joomla/iscrizione/materiali/16258/StickyBusiness.doc

1.6 Presupposition

In the preceding part, information structure and theme and rheme have been discussed In everyday context, a question is often made to ask for some information that the speaker has not known However, the speaker assumes that certain information has already known by the hearer As we know that such information will generally not be stated and therefore we will count it as part of what is communicated not said The following part is designed to illustrate

some aspects of implicit assumption-presupposition

It can not be denied that presuppostion is of great importance when one wants to produce as

well as comprehend a speech act There have been a large number of definitions of presuppositions which present different views of scholars towards the concept

Common views consider presupposition to be a background belief, relating to an utterance It

is what both the addresser and addressee already know and assume so that the utterance will

be appropriate in context It will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the

utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can be associated with

a specific lexical item or grammatical feature in the utterance.4

There have existed many definitions by various linguists

According to Hudson (2000) " a presupposition is something assumed ( presupposed) to be

true in a sentence which asserts other information" And Brown and Yule (1983) defines that

"Presupposition is the assumption the speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept

without challenge" On the other hand, Levison (1997) states that one of the properties of the

presupposition is that they are liable to evaporate in certain context, either immediate linguistic or the less immediate discourse context, or in circumstance where contrary assumptions are made 5

In short, presupposition occurs when the utterance tells the hearer that what the speaker

is talking is quite clear, whether in positive or negative form

4 http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAPresupposition

5 www.uobabylon.edu.iq/ /articles/Entailment%20&%20Presupposition.pdf

Chapter 2 The structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions

In the last chapter, the author has deeply discussed some relevant matters relating to English wh-questions, in this chapter, the author would like to examine the structural pattern

of the wh-questions in general and then he will thoroughly illustrate the use of wh-questions in daily discourse and finally he will discuss some types of semantic features of the wh-questions

- presuppositions

2.1 STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS

2.1.1 Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions

In this first part of chapter 2, the author would like to discuss in order to find out the structure for the wh-questions in which the question words act as the subjects of the sentences

When asking about the subjects of the wh-questions, we often use such wh-words as

what, who, whose, which, how much+ noun(noncount) and how many + Noun ( pl)

For example: 1 Who helped you to finish the work yesterday?

2 What happened last night?

3 How much money is spent on advertising everyday?

4 How many people took part in the games last Sunday?

When the wh-element acts as the subject of the question, there is no change in the order

of the sentence element The wh-element stands at the beginning of the question In such tenses as the simple present and the simple past, we do not add auxiliary verbs like do or did

Let's consider the two first examples In the example 1, we see that the

subject is who, and the predicate is everything else The question is formed by

putting the wh- word who into the subject position The question is about the

subject of the sentence The speaker knows everything-someone helped you to

finish the work yesterday, but doesn't know who In the second one, the subject

is what, and the predicate is everything else The question is about the subject

of the sentence: something happened The question is formed by putting the

wh- word what into the subject position No other changes are needed to make

a question-other than the question mark, of course 6

A subject wh-question is an open question, it means that this kind of question can have any number of answers It asks about missing information the speaker needs about the subject of the sentence (performer of the action) A question element needs to precede the subject in order to form this question The “question element” is formed according to the following rule

To form a subject Wh-question in English, replace the subject with a question word,

using who (for people) or what (for non-person) The word order is that of a positive sentence

There is no auxiliary verb in subject wh-questions in the Present Simple and Past Simple tenses The question word simply replaces the subject The formular for this type of question

is

Subject/Wh + finite verb

However, do can be used after a subject question word for emphasis, to insist on an

answer

5 Well tell us - what did happen when your father found you?

6 So who did marry the Princess at the end?

When who, what and which serve as the subjects of the wh-questions, They can be

considered either singular or plural form The following pairs of examples illustrate this:

7a Who is in favour of the proposal?

7b Who are in favour of the proposal?

8a Which member of the carbinet leaked the information to the press ? 8b Which members of the carbinet leaked the information to the press?

Whether the wh-word is singular or plural depends on the situation and the presupposition of

It seems that in voting procedure, it involves two pluralities: those who are in favor and those who are against Only one person holding a position that is in favour or against is possible This suggests that if the number of people who voted in a certain way is not known, the question as to their identity should be phrased in plural form If it is (supposed to be) known that only one such person is involved, the singular form is appropriate

On the other hand, in pair 8a and 8b, leaking a certain piece of information typically seems to be an individual activity, though certainly several people could be involved in it as well Therefore, it is normal to use the singular form

These considerations seem to conclude that there is no clear grammatical distinction between

singular and plural forms of wh-words

1 Who did you meet at the reunion party yesterday?

2 When did your father give up smoking?

3 How long have you been waiting for me?

Let's consider the example number 1 In this question, the presupposition

of this question is that " You met someone at the reunion party yesterday" The subject of the sentence is You The predicate is met someone at the reunion

party yesterday The total sentence that lies behind the question: You met someone at the reunion party yesterday The unknown information is the direct

object of the verb met From question 1, we can withdraw the following rule:

First of all, replace someone by who: You met who at the reunion party

yesterday? Then invert who to the front of the question: Who you met at the reunion party? Finally, add the operator (did) in front of the subject and turn

the simple past verb met into meet The question would be Who did you meet at

the reunion party yesterday? 7

In this case we can use whom instead of who However, it is rather formal and unlikely

to be used in asking a question like this one In fact, native speakers do not often use whom in

this type of question daily

The structure of the question above is : Who/Whom + operator + Subject + verb?

The same procedures can be applied to questions 2 and 3 Therefore, we can have the following structure

Complement/ Wh

Adjunct / Wh

Operator Subject Verb ?

2.1.3 Verb-oriented questions

Questions words and expressions can be used to ask for most kinds of word- for

example a subject ( who, what, which), and object ( who, whom, what) , a determiner ( what,

which, whose), an adjective ( what like) or an adverbial expression ( where, when, why, how) However, there is no simple word or expression that can be used to ask for a verb For

this purpose, we normally make a sentence using what with do

1 What are you doing next weekend? Resting

The answer to what do can include a verb together with what follows it

2 What's Helen doing? Getting all the rubbish out of the car

To ask for a transitive verb when the subject and the object are both mentioned, we use what

do to/with

3 What have you done to your leg? Broken it

4 What are you doing with my camera?

2.1.4 Wh-questions with prepositions

When a question word is the object of a preposition, the preposition most often comes

at the end of the clause, especially in informal usage For example:

1 Who is the present for?

7 http://www2.gsu.edu/eslhpb/grammar/lecture_10/quest_answers.html

2 What are you looking at?

3 Where did she buy it from?

Some questions consist simply of question word + preposition

7 With what money?

On the other hand, in a more formal style, a preposition is often put earlier in questions, before the question words

8 With whom did she go?

However, in a very formal style, prepositions are not often put at the beginning of

questions which have "be" as the main verb

9 Who is it for, madam?

Moreover, some structures such as "where to? what like? and what for?" have fixed order We often do not put the preposition at the beginning of the questions before the question words in these cases

10 Where shall I send it to?

11 What does she look like?

12 What did she buy that for?

2.1.5 Emphatic wh-questions

There are a couple of ways to show surprise, dismay, or perplexity when asking questions One is to add an expletive after the wh-word The following are some mild examples

wh-1 What on earth have you done to yourself?

2 Where the hell have you been all this morning?

3 Why the devil did they leave so early?