QUESTION FORMS

There are four main types of questions:

1.  Open questions

2.  Closed questions

3.  Tag questions

4.  Embedded questions


1.   Open questions or wh- questions (what, when, where, which, who, whose, why and how +
much/many/far etc.)

·        used to ask for information

·        formed with a question word which comes before an auxiliary verb + subject + main verb

Who did you meet in Argentina?

Who are you waiting for?

·        sometimes the question word is the subject of the sentence

Who met you at the airport? (auxiliaries do/does/did aren’t used)

What has happened? (auxiliaries other than do/did can be used)


2.  Closed questions or yes/no questions

·        formed with an auxiliary verb + subject + main verb

·        yes or no answer is expected


              - Did you check all the invoices?  - Yes, I did. / No, I didn’t.


3.  Tag questions

·        formed with auxiliaries + the pronoun which are inverted

·        an affirmative (+) statement usually has a negative tag, and vice-versa

·        used to check or confirm statements

                He went to the meeting, didn’t he?

                You don’t speak French, do you?


4.  Embedded questions or indirect questions

·        used to ask for possibly sensitive information politely or to sound generally more polite

·        have the same word order as statements

               Could you tell me what your salary is?

               I wonder whether he’ll apply for the job?