You will hear a good deal about these words if you are taking an initial training course. Unfortunately, you may also hear a good deal which is wrong.
You may, at the outset, have noted that the word how is included in the list above but that it doesn't start with wh-. That's true. Nevertheless, it appears in this guide and is traditionally included in the group because it exhibits similar characteristics.
 | Making questions |
Not only do these words make questions, the reason they do so is to do with their meaning. They all have the general meaning of
I do not know what this refers to so tell me.
We'll consider the 9 main wh-words: how, what, when, where, why, who, whom, which, whose. We will consider them in isolation and talk about what else they do later.
We can elicit all sorts of information using these nine words.
- How did you know? (manner or means)
- What was she wearing? (thing)
- Where did they go? (place)
- When did they go? (time)
- Why was she crying? (reason)
- Who told you? (subject person)
- Who(m) did you tell? (object person)
- Which do you want? (choice of thing)
- Whose is that hat? (possessive)
 | Think for a moment about the answers to these 9 questions. What do you notice? Click here when you have a response. |
- How questions are normally answered by using a whole sentence and here an example might be
How did you know?
Mary told me
It is unlikely that an answer would be
Immediately
but that is possible. Adverbs are sometimes what the question is getting at as in e.g.,
How was he driving?
Very carefully
but that is a fairly rare event. - What questions are almost always directed at non-human nouns or noun phrases so an answer to the question might be something like
What was she wearing?
Jeans and a T-shirt
What questions rarely refer to humans and we prefer
Which person did you ask?
over
What person did you ask? - Where questions are used to elicit spatial information. The answer will normally be a place, and adverb or a prepositional phrase, e.g.:
Where did they go?
To London
London
Into the house
Outside - When questions usually elicit a time, and adverb phrase, a prepositional phrase or a clause so possible answers are
When did they go?
At 6
Just now
After lunch
When everyone had finished - Why questions are also normally answered with whole sentences (sometimes much more) or clauses beginning with a word like because such as:
Why was she crying?
Because it was so sad
Because he'd been so rude
We can omit the word because although it is always implied as in, e.g.:
The car had broken down again
These questions also frequently elicit a clause beginning with to, in order to and so that:
To make him feel guilty
In order to make him feel guilty
So that we'd take pity on her
The complication with why questions is that the question word can refer to the reason for doing something as in:
Why were you late?
or the purpose for doing something, as in:
Why did you telephone?
Some languages reserve different question words for these two distinct meanings and that can lead to some confusion and error. - Who questions traditionally refer to people as the subject of the verb but also, frequently, to the object. They always refer to people, never inanimate objects and rarely non-humans. Answers might be:
Who told you?
John
The man in the shop
Those people - Whom questions can only be reference to human objects of the verb. Possible answers might be:
Whom did you tell?
John
The man in the shop
Those people
In colloquial English whom is frequently replaced by who so the question could easily have been
Who did you tell?
but it still refers to the object, not the subject of the verb. - Which questions imply a choice from a limited number of options that the questioner is aware of. They can apply to people and to non-animate items.
Which do you want?
almost certainly refers to things, not people and implies a limited choice of items to choose from.
Possible answers might be:
That one
The blue one
A plain one
If which questions are used to refer to people, they must be accompanied by a noun such as girl, boy, man, person, customer etc., all of which refer to classes of people. The question cannot usually be:
Which did you tell?
but could be
Which police officer did you tell?
Possible answers might be:
The tall one
Him
That one - Whose questions refer to people and very rarely to animals, even more rarely to inanimate objects. Possible answers will include the possessive 's marker or involve the use of the possessive pronoun:
Whose is that hat?
John's
Your mother's
His
 | What is not possible |
There are some things that wh-questions cannot elicit. For example:
- We cannot ask about what are called dummy subjects. We can say
It got very windy yesterday
but the question
What got very windy yesterday?
is meaningless because the answer would be it.
The pronoun it is not always a dummy so when it refers to a real object, we allow:
It got broken
What got broken?
The table. - We cannot ask about the adjective complements of linking verbs such as appear, grow, become, seem etc. We can say
John appeared tired
She was exhausted
They grew angry
but the questions
What did John appear?
What was she?
What did they grow?
are not possible without altering the meaning. - We cannot ask about the verb. We can say
She told her mother a lie
They chose him
but the questions
*What did she her mother?
*What did they him?
are nonsense.
 | Why is this important? |
This is important because other languages handle interrogatives very differently and the peculiar restrictions of applicability to humans, non-humans and inanimate objects and restricted choices, for example, do not apply universally to all languages as they do to English. The area needs to be taught.
 | Intonation |
Question intonation on questions formed with wh-words like:
What time is the meeting?
generally falls, but on a question such as
Are you coming to the meeting?
it tends to rise. The effect can be represented like this:
This is not an absolute rule – very little of intonation contains such things – but it is a clear tendency. Many languages rely solely on intonation to make questions from statements and English has that ability, too, in questions such as
You are going to London?
in which the intonation rises sharply along with voice pitch to express disbelief or surprise. This is often rendered in writing by double question marks and/or exclamation marks.
This is an area that needs to be taught because many learners will assume that intonation always rises on questions and are in danger of sounding rude and demanding if they do this with wh-questions.
 | Forming wh-questions |
It is impossible to form wh-questions successfully unless you are alert to the focus of the question you want to ask.
- It matters a lot if the wh-word is the subject of the sentence or not. In questions 1., 4. and 7, the wh-phrase is the subject of the verb and the order of words which follow it is unchanged from a simple positive statement.
We replace the subject noun or noun phrase with the wh-word without disturbing the word order. For example:Positive sentence vs. Wh-question The boys from over the road broke the glass Who broke the glass? John's car hit the gate Whose car hit the gate? The marching band from Baltimore comes next What comes next? - In all the other questions the order of words after the wh-word is changed to reflect the fact that it is a question form and the focus of the question is the object not the subject. In other words, we add the wh-word to the normal question form.
When the question word refers to the object of the verb we get a pattern like this:Normal question vs. Wh-question Did you lose a letter? Which letter did you lose? Did you see anyone? Whom/Who did you see? Did you hear anything? Whatdid you hear? Did you drive your own car? Whose car did you drive? - In the examples where the wh-word refers to the complement (rather than the object) of the verb, the same patterns occur:
Normal question vs. Wh-question Have you been here long? How long have you been here? Were you late? Whywere you late? Are you going to tell her? Whenare you going to tell her? Is the meeting here? Whereis the meeting?
This is a complication which many other languages do not share so it is a source of errors such as:
- *Who did break the glass?
- *What does come next?
- *Why you are late?
- *When you are going to tell her?
etc.
We need to distinguish this carefully when teaching the forms or we will be guilty of actually inducing errors in our learners rather than helping them to the right forms.
To emphasise the point, there are three rules:
 | If the focus of the question is the subject of the verb, the question is formed with unchanged word order. |
So we have, e.g.:
The girl caught the ball → Who caught the ball?
The car hit the wall → What hit the wall?
The grey horse won → Which horse won?
My team lost → Whose team lost?
Forming these questions is really quite simple. It is even simpler when the verb in question cannot take an object at all because no other construction is possible so we get:
The girl left → Who left?
It fell → What fell?
The letter arrived → Which letter arrived?
My team came first → Whose team came first?
 | If the focus of the question is theobject of the verb, the normal rules for forming questions apply. |
So we have, e.g.:
The girl caught the ball → What did the girl catch?
The car has hit the wall → What has the car hit?
The grey horse will win the last race → Which race will the grey horse win?
My dog chased her cat → Whose cat did your dog chase?
Forming these questions is only simple if learners are already familiar with the quite complicated ways that questions are formed. For more on that, see the guide linked below.
 | If the focus of the question is on theadverbial (when, where, why, with what, with whom, how), the normal rules for forming questions apply. |
So we have, e.g.:
The girl left last night → When did the girl leave?
The car has stopped outside the house → Where has the car stopped?
She has bet on the grey horse → Why has she bet on the grey horse?
They finished the work with some help → How did they finish the work?
I travelled by car → How did you travel?
I worked with Mary → Who did you work with?
Again, forming these questions is only simple if learners are already familiar with the quite complicated ways that questions are formed. For more on that, see the guide linked below.
The abbreviated rule is:
Apply the normal rules for forming questions with wh-wordsunless the focus is the subject.
 | Complications with how |
As we saw in the first set of examples, most wh-words have a straightforward meaning. The word how is somewhat different.
| What does it mean in these examples?
Click here when you have 8 meanings clear. Thinking of possible answers to the questions makes that easier. |
- How long have you been waiting?
Les than ten minutes
Referring to duration - How often does she do that?
Seldom
Referring to frequency - How much does he want the job?
Very badly
Referring to intensity - How long is the journey?
Three miles / More than a day's drive
Referring to distance or duration - How are you?
Fine
Referring to personal feeling - How was the trip?
Very comfortable
Referring to quality - How interesting did you find it?
Not particularly
Referring to extent - How many do we need?
At least a dozen
Referring to quantity
The issue here is the word is followed by a range of other items (quantifiers, adverbs, adjectives etc.) and its meaning alters considerably. Other languages do not have such a common multiword so the area needs handling carefully. Learners can easily become confused.
The word what also exhibits multiple meanings but to a lesser extent. We can have, for example:
What did you tell her? (referring to something said)
What can I help you with? (referring to an action)
What flight are you on? (referring to a noun phrase)
 | Formality and prepositions |
Formality in English requires the wh-word to be accompanied by its preposition so we get, e.g.:
| Formal question | vs. | Informal question |
| With whom did you come? | Who did you come with? | |
| For what did he ask? | What did he ask for? | |
| With which officer did you speak? | Which officer did you speak with |
That's the general rule but the longer the clause between the wh-word and the preposition, the more difficult it gets to construct an informal sentence. Would you accept, e.g.,
What did you use to get the awful mess out of the pipe and clear away all the dirty water from the sink with?
or
What time are you going to ask them all and their friends from Holland to meet us under the pier at?
 | Emphasising wh-questions |
The most frequent way to emphasise wh-questions is the use of the word ever. For example
- Who ever did that?
- How ever did you manage it?
- Which ever did you choose?
- How ever long have you been waiting?
- Why ever were you late?
- Whose ever car was that?
- When ever are you going to finish?
- What ever did she mean?
- Where ever can she be?
- Whom ever did you tell?
Some things to note:
- There are other popular emphasisers such as the hell, in heaven's name, on earth etc.
- These are normally written as two words to distinguish their function. When they are written as one word, they often mean It doesn't matter who/what/when/how/which etc. For example
Whoever comes late must sit over there
is not emphatic; it means anyone who comes late.
He leaves whenever he feels a little tired
is also not emphatic; it functions as a subordinating conjunction just aswhen does. The same applies to
You can sit wherever you like
and to many other -ever words. - The emphatic why ever only occurs as two words in English.
| Related guides | |
| negatives and questions | for a more on these two areas |
| tag questions | an essential guide to how these and what they do |
| interrogatives | for a much more technical guide in the in-service section to the whole area |
