Questions That Begin with 'Who': Part 2

 

Today we continue our chapter, "Questions" and we continue our unit "Beginning a Question with 'Who'.  This lesson is primarily for beginners and intermediate learners of English.

Some knowledge of grammar is necessary to learn how to correctly structure a "who" question. To learn about sentence structure in preparation for this lesson, please click here.  To review 'Questions That Begin with WHO, Part 1: When the Answer to the Question is the Subject of the Sentence,' please click here.

Preview

How to Punctuate a Question in Quoted Speech

We begin by reviewing a few points: Questions that begin with "who" may follow one of two structures.  In the previous lesson, we described the first structure. In this lesson, we describe the second structure.

Read the statements and the three questions about the statement.  Notice how the sentence structure of question #1 is different from that of questions #2 and #3 below:

My daughter spoke to the doctor about her broken finger.

  1. Who spoke to the doctor?

  2. Who did your daughter speak to?

Did you ever notice that, or wonder why, there are different structures for a question?  To determine the proper structure for a question that begins with who, you need to know what the grammatical structure of the answer will be!

2) When the Answer to the who Question is the Object of the Verb

Chart for Structure of Verbs in Negative Questions

Use the following structure when:

  •  the answer to the question beginning with who is the object of the verb or the object of the preposition.


who Auxiliary Subject Rest of the Verb/ Rest of the Sentence ANSWER
Who did you want to go with? I wanted to go with Roger.
Who ***  does she teach? She teaches ESL students.
Who would I choose to help? I would choose to help my family.
Who *** was he trying to frighten? He was trying to frighten my three sisters.
         

The Pronoun who

The pronoun 'who'

***  The pronoun who is 3rd person singular.  Therefore, when the verb is in the present tense or is a 'be" verb of past tense, it must be in the 3rd person singular form. ***

This concludes our unit on Questions. You can continue learning about questions by going to our unit, "Indirect Speech" and learning about questions in indirect (reported) speech.

All material is copyrighted, Software for Students.  Copying for PERSONAL USE ONLY. All others must contact Software for Students for permission to use in schools or other educational institutions.