WH Questions: 9 WH Words in Effective Use

WH Questions

The words—Who, Whom, Whose, Which, What, When, Where, Why, how are called Wh Questions because they are used to ask Questions & that end in—–?

WH words are classified into three:

1. Interrogative Pronouns——-who, whom, whose, which, and what.
2. Interrogative Adjectives—–what, which, and whose.
3. Interrogative Adverbs—–when, where how, and why.

Note: If there is any auxiliary verb/modal like——am, is, are, was, were, have, has, had, can, could, may, might, must, shall, will, should, would, need, dare etc, they come before the subject.

1. But if there is no Auxiliary verb, then we have to use——do, does, or did according to Tense, Number, and Person.
2.  When the Sentence is in the Present Indefinite & the main verb has  –s/es, use—does and drop the s/es from the main verb.
3. Use—–do-when the main verb has no s/es.
4. Use- did if the verb is in the Past Indefinite and change the main verb into the Present Form.

HOW TO MAKE WH QUESTIONS

Structure: WH word+ auxiliary verb+ subject+ main verb+ other words+?

• S: Shakespeare had written Hamlet.
• Q: Who had written Hamlet?
• S: He is the author of this play.
• Q: Who is the author of this play?
• He failed in English because he did not study well.
• Q: Why did he fail in English?
• S: We play football in the afternoon.
• Q: When do you play football?/What do you play in the afternoon?

   Note:

1. The Subject in the 1^st person becomes the 2^nd person and the Subject in the 2^nd person becomes the 1^st person in the Questions.
2. But there is no change of the 3^rd person.

USES OF THE WH WORDS IN FRAMING QUESTIONS: HOW TO MAKE WH QUESTIONS

1. Who—- is applied to persons  in the Nominative Case/Subjective only to know about the identity;
2. Whom—is applied to personal objects only;
3. Whose—is applied to know the relation/make a relation between person with person or person with a thing/animal;
4. What —is applied to know the name of persons, professions, ranks, things, animals, etc;
5. Which—is applied to know about things, animals, children, or inanimate objects;
6. When—is applied to know about time, day, date, year, season;
7. Where—is applied to know about a place;
8. Why—is applied to know the reason/cause of an action/happening an action;
9. How—is applied to know the quantity, number, duration, size, distance, frequency, etc.

Who:

• S: She is my sister.
• Q: Who is she?
• S: This is my English teacher, Mr. Mohsin.
• Q: Who is this man/he?
• S: Everybody loves his motherland.
• Q: Who doesn’t love his motherland?

Whom/To Whom/By Whom/With Whom/For Whom/In Whom/On Whom:

• S: We love our mother very much.
• Q: Whom do you love very much?
• S: She visited her mother.
• Q: Whom did she visit?
• S: They will address the letter to the Chairman.
• Q: To whom will they address the letter?
• S:  We can get the work done by some workers.
• Q: By whom can you get the work done?
• S: She went to Dhaka with her father.
• Q: With whom did she go to Dhaka?
• S: He calls for prayer for the Muslims.
• Q: For whom does he call for prayer?
• S: They can find the best qualities in teenagers.
• Q: In whom can they find the best qualities?
• S: We should put our trust in some people.
• Q: On whom should you put your trust?

Whose:

• S: This is our car.
• Q: Whose car is this?
• S: He is Rahim’s brother.
• Q: Whose brother is he?

What/To what/By what/ For what/What for/In what/On what/From what/What like:

• S: My name is Khan.
• Q: What is your name?
• S: This is a banyan tree.
• Q: What is this?
• S: He is an army officer.
• Q: What is he?
• S: I am laughing on seeing the cartoon.
• Q: What makes you laugh?
• S:He is moving to the south.
• Q: To what direction is he moving?
• S: His dishonesty was proved by evidence.
• Q: By what was his dishonesty proved?
• S: We shall take this risk for some gain.
• Q: For what will you take this risk?
• S: I am waiting here for some purpose.
• Q: What are you waiting here for?
• S: He is superior to me in strength.
• Q: In what is he superior to you?
• S: I depend on reliable news.
• Q: On what do you depend?
• S: I got the news from Facebook.
• Q: From what did you get the news?
• S: He was much delighted like a demon.
• Q: What did he look like?

Which/To which/For which/ From which/In which/Of which:

• S: The red ball is mine.
• Q: Which ball is yours?
• S: Mango is the sweetest fruit.
• Q: Which is the sweetest fruit?
• S: I like only the tea of Sylhet.
• Q: Which tea do you like?
• S: Our country is marching to a certain goal.
• Q: To which goal is our country marching?
• S: He will advocate for the accused.
• Q: For which accused will he advocate?
• S: He will get help from his friend, Sajjad in time of need.
• Q: From which friend will he get help?
• S: We live in America.
• Q: In which country do you live?

When:

• S: I get up at six o’clock.
• Q: When do you get up?
• S: He was born in January.
• Q: When was he born?
• S: We visited India in 2001.
• Q: When did you visit India?

Where:

• S: We live in India.
• Q: Where do you live?
• S: I am from Noakhali.
• Q: Where are you from?

Why:

• S: He was late because he did not get the bus.
• Q: Why was he late?
• S: He could not get an A+ as he did not try well.
• Q: Why could he not get an A+?

How/How much/How many/How long/How old/How tall/How far/How often:

• S: I am thirty-nine years old.
• Q: How old are you?
• S: He did the work easily.
• Q: How did he do the work?
• S: I go there twice a week.
• Q: How often do you go there?
• S: I have been typing for two hours.
• Q: How long have you been typing?
• S: He has a lot of friends.
• Q: How many friends does he have?
• S: He gave me a lot of milk.
• Q: How much milk did he give you?
•  S: He is about 6 feet tall.
• Q: How tall is he?
• S: I know a lot about the matter.
• Q: How far do you know about the matter?

Please vide: to the next post Appropriate Prepositions-1