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:
- Interrogative Pronouns——-who, whom, whose, which, and what.
- Interrogative Adjectives—–what, which, and whose.
- 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.
- But if there is no Auxiliary verb, then we have to use——do, does, or did according to Tense, Number, and Person.
- 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.
- Use—–do-when the main verb has no s/es.
- 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:
- The Subject in the 1st person becomes the 2nd person and the Subject in the 2nd person becomes the 1st person in the Questions.
- But there is no change of the 3rd person.
USES OF THE WH WORDS IN FRAMING QUESTIONS: HOW TO MAKE WH QUESTIONS
- Who—- is applied to persons in the Nominative Case/Subjective only to know about the identity;
- Whom—is applied to personal objects only;
- Whose—is applied to know the relation/make a relation between person with person or person with a thing/animal;
- What —is applied to know the name of persons, professions, ranks, things, animals, etc;
- Which—is applied to know about things, animals, children, or inanimate objects;
- When—is applied to know about time, day, date, year, season;
- Where—is applied to know about a place;
- Why—is applied to know the reason/cause of an action/happening an action;
- 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