Grammar: Questions

a) Questions

Question words:

Formation of questions using question words:

Question word + auxiliary verb + subject + bare infinitive (without to)

Examples:

• What do you eat for breakfast?
• Where do they live?
• Why do we need to go to school?
• Why does he play football?

The auxiliary "do / does" changes to "did" when asking a question in the past.

• Where did you live?

We do not use the auxiliary "do / does / did" in questions if "who / what / which" is the subject of the sentence.

We use "who" when we are referring to people. We use "what" or which when we are referring to things or places.

More examples with "who / what / which" as the subject:

• Who wants to play tennis? (Not - who does want)
• Which computer is the best? (Not - which computer does be)

Questions without question words:

We usually make a question by changing the word order in a sentence. We put the first auxiliary verb before the subject:

Sentence: We will go swimming tomorrow

Question: Will we go swimming tomorrow?

Sentence: I have been working hard

Question: Have you been working hard?

b) Answering questions

When answering a question you usually use the bare infinitive:

• Where do you live? I live in London
• Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yes, I have one brother

However, when the question does not require any specific information and a simple yes or no answer, we use the auxiliary verb as the answer.

• Does he enjoy his job? Yes, he does
• Do you play the trumpet? Yes, I do