W-H Questions

Please keep in mind that the quiz questions must be in the past tense most of the time.

A W-H question is an open question, meaning that it can have any number of answers. It asks about some missing information the speaker needs. This corresponds to the different sentence elements, such as the verb, objects, manner, place, time, purpose, etc. Questions about the subject have a special form (see the next section). A question element needs to precede the subject in order to form this question. The “question element” is formed according to the following rule.

The W-H Question Rule: To form a W-H question in English, add a W-H question word before the corresponding yes/no question.

Pay attention:

• • When an auxiliary verb (including modals) is used, the main verb is not inflected (no s or ed ending), meaning that either the base form or past participle is used.
• • The verb to be uses a different W-H question pattern. Click here for more information.

Review the following table for examples of W-H questions in English.

Tense	Question about:	Example
Present Simple	Place	Where does she play?
Past Simple	Time	When did they play?
Present Progressive	Manner	How is he playing?
Past Progressive	Direct object	What was he playing?
Present Perfect	Indirect object	With who have you played?
Present Perfect Progressive	Choice	Which game have you been playing?
Past Perfect	Reason	Why had they played?
Past Perfect Progressive	Frequency	How often had she been playing?
Future Simple	Number	How much will I play?
Modals	Possession	Whose role can he play?
Conditional	Duration	How long would it take?
Conditional perfect	Age	How old would he have been?

W-H subject questions

A W-H Subject question is an open question, meaning that it 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.

The Subject W-H Question Rule: To form a subject W-H-question in English, replace the subject with a question word, using who (for people) or what (for non-people)? The word order is that of a positive sentence.

Pay attention:

• • There is no auxiliary verb in W-H Subject questions in the Present Simple and Past Simple tenses. The question word simply replaces the subject.
• • In the present tenses, the verb is always in the third person singular, using the appropriate verb form.

Review the following table for examples of W-H Subject questions in English.

Tense	Question about:	Example
Present Simple	People	Who plays there every week?
Past Simple	Non-people	What made all that noise?
Present Progressive	People	Who is playing today?
Past Progressive	Non-people	What was making all that noise?
Present Perfect	People	Who’s written this essay?
Modals	People	Who can help me?

Document adapted from:

http://www.whitesmoke.com/negative-sentences-question-formation.html