QUESTION FORMS

Question forms & subject/object questions

Review of question forms

Yes/No questions

·         Is he a teacher? Yes he is.

·         Can you swim? No, I can’t.

·         Have they got a car? Yes they have.

To form yes/no questions where there is an auxiliary verb or a modal verb, we invert the word order of a positive sentence. (He is a teacher > Is he a teacher?)

·         Do you eat fish? No I don’t.

·         Does she know you. Yes she does.

When there is no auxiliary verb we use ‘do’ to form the question.

With question words

The same rules apply when there is a question word (‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘how’, ‘how much’, ‘how many’)

·         Where is the hotel?

·         What can you smell?

·         Who has just arrived?

Where there is an auxiliary or modal verb, that verb is used to form the question.

·         How did you get here?

·         When do your parents get back?

·         How much does it cost?

Where there is no auxiliary verb, we use do.

Subject/Object questions

Sometimes you might see questions like this.

·         Who broke the window?

·         What happened next?

·         Who told you that?

There is no auxiliary verb and the word order is not inverted.

These are called subject questions – because the question word is the subject of the sentence.

Look at these two questions.

·         Who does Romeo love? Romeo loves Juliet.

·         Who loves Romeo? Juliet loves Romeo.

In the first question, Romeo is the subject of the verb.
In the second question ‘who’ is the subject and Romeo is the object.

Question tags

Question tags are the short questions that we put on the end of sentences – particularly in spoken English. There are lots of different question tags but the rules are not difficult to learn.

Positive/negative

If the main part of the sentence is positive, the question tag is negative ….

·         He’s a doctor, isn’t he?

·         You work in a bank, don’t you?

... and if the main part of the sentence is negative, the question tag is positive.

·         You haven’t met him, have you?

·         She isn’t coming, is she?

With auxiliary verbs

The question tag uses the same verb as the main part of the sentence. If this is an auxiliary verb (‘have’, ‘be’) then the question tag is made with the auxiliary verb.

·         They’ve gone away for a few days, haven’t they?

·         They weren’t here, were they?

·         He had met him before, hadn’t he?

·         This isn’t working, is it?

Without auxiliary verbs

If the main part of the sentence doesn’t have an auxiliary verb, the question tag uses an appropriate form of ‘do’.

·         I said that, didn’t I?

·         You don’t recognise me, do you?

·         She eats meat, doesn’t she?

With modal verbs

If there is a modal verb in the main part of the sentence the question tag uses the same modal verb.

·         They couldn’t hear me, could they?

·         You won’t tell anyone, will you?

With ‘I am’

Be careful with question tags with sentences that start ‘I am’. The question tag for ‘I am’ is ‘aren’t I?’

·         I’m the fastest, aren’t I?

Intonation

Question tags can either be ‘real’ questions where you want to know the answer or simply asking for agreement when we already know the answer.

If the question tag is a real question we use rising intonation. Our tone of voice rises.
If we already know the answer we use falling intonation. Our tone of voice falls.