whquestion

Wh-questions are a class of information-seeking questions in English that begin with a wh-word such as who, what, where, when, why, how, which, or how much. They request specific details rather than a yes-or-no answer and are essential for gathering precise information.

Formation relies on wh-fronting and, in most cases, subject–auxiliary inversion. When the main clause contains an auxiliary verb, that auxiliary moves before the subject after the wh-word: What did you eat for breakfast? Where are you going? How old is your sister? If there is no auxiliary, English uses do-support: What do you want? Why did you leave? Subject questions, in which the wh-word is the subject, typically do not require inversion: Who called last night?

Wh-questions can be categorized by the role of the wh-word. Wh-objects answer questions about the object of a verb (What did you buy?); wh-subjects identify the actor (Who wrote the letter?); wh-places, times, reasons, and manners form adverbial questions (Where are you staying? When did the event occur? How did you solve it? Why were you late?).

Embedded (indirect) questions imitate a statement rather than a direct question and typically do not invert: I wonder where she lives. In these cases the wh-word appears in the same order as in a statement, and a question mark is not used.

Common wh-words include who, what, which, where, when, why, how, and expressions like how much, how many. Wh-questions are a fundamental tool for obtaining specific information in English and are widely studied in linguistics for their syntactic properties and cross-linguistic variation.