The essence of any communication is the exchange of information. If you want to know something specific from your interlocutor, then you need to ask an informational question. In order for the interlocutor to understand exactly what information you want to receive from him, the correct question word plays an important role. In an information question, the question word should come first.
All question words, with the exception of How, begin with the letters Wh, so information questions are often called Wh-Questions. Question words can be one word, two words, or a whole phrase. Some words (what, how) form a series of interrogative combinations, which we will also pay attention to.
Many people find it difficult to remember all the question words at once, because at first glance they seem very similar. In addition, most of the question words have nuances in use that simply cannot be ignored.
I decided to introduce you to question words gradually, in doses, because I know from myself how difficult it is to quickly perceive a large amount of information. In my explanations, I will not limit myself to the translation of the question word and examples of questions with it, but will try to tell you as much as possible. Today we will look at the words who, whom and whose.
Who? - Who? (Who? To whom? By whom?)
This word is only used in questions about a person. When we ask a question with the word who , we want to get the person's name in response, or information about who that person is:
Who is it? - Who is this?
Who will help you? - Who will help you?
Who did you invite to the party? -Who did you invite to the party?
Who did they travel with? -Who did they travel with?
Questions with who can be of two types: questions to the subject and questions to the object. Depending on what exactly we want to ask, the structure of the question will change:
Who called you? - Who called you?
(question to the subject)
Who did you call? - Who did you call?
(question for addition)
I explained the difference between these questions in great detail in the article. If you find it difficult to understand the difference between these types of questions, I highly recommend that you read and understand.
Whom - Whom? By whom? To whom?
The interrogative word whom is very similar to who, even translated the same way, but is not used as often as who. If who can ask questions to the subject (Who?), then questions with whom imply a question only about the object: Whom? To whom? Rarely seen in modern colloquial speech, this word is more typical of the formal style:
Whom did you meet yesterday? -Who did you meet yesterday?
Whom is she calling? -Who is she calling?
Whom is often used in questions with verbs that require the preposition to, for, with, and others after them. For example: give, speak, talk, buy, send and many others. Therefore, questions with whom at the beginning can have a preposition at the end:
Who(m) did you talk to? - Who did you talk to?
Who(m) did he buy it for? - Who/for whom did he buy it?
Who(m) did you send the letter to? - Who did you send the letter to?
In all the examples above, you can replace who with whom. But if you have a very formal tone, then the preposition can come at the beginning of the sentence, before whom:
To whom did you talk to? - Who did you talk to?
With whom will you meet? -Who will you meet?
Whose? - Whose?
If you need to ask a question about who owns something, you will need the question word whose. Most often whose is used with a noun. If the question is about an object (whose object?), and from the communication situation it is clear what exactly the question is about (for example, you point to an object), then the noun may be omitted:
Whose (book) is this? - Whose book is this?
Whose (pencils) are those? - Whose pencils are they?
If you are asking about people, then the noun after whose cannot be removed:
Whose brother is he? -Whose brother is he?
Whose children are they? - Whose children are these?
The noun about which the question is being asked can also go to the end of the sentence. Then the auxiliary verb comes directly after the question word whose:
Whose is this book? - Whose book is this?
Whose are those pencils? - Whose pencils are they?
Whose are these children? - Whose children are these?
Since the owners of something are usually people, in response we expect to hear the person’s name in the possessive case, or a possessive pronoun. We discussed in detail how to answer questions with whose in the articles and.
Whose can also be used with prepositions. The preposition can appear at the very beginning of the question (more formal option) or at the end (less formal option):
With whose plan do you agree? -Whose plan do you agree with?
In whose house did you stay? - In whose house did you stay?
And one last point. You can confuse the question word whose with the form who's, because they sound exactly the same. Who's is from who is or who has, so there is no auxiliary verb after it (it is shortened), and after whos e there is a regular, unabridged auxiliary verb:
Who's this? - Who is this?
Who's got a pen? -Who has a pen?
Who's done that? - Who did it?
Whose is this? - Whose is this?
In the next article on questions, I will tell you about question words. And the next article will be devoted to the question words where, when, how. If you have any questions, write to us and leave comments.
Thanks to lessons 8 and 20, you are already familiar with question words and can ask questions in different tenses. Today's lesson is about how to ask questions to the subject.
Question words who and what
The subject is the main member of the sentence, indicating the person or thing performing the action. When you ask a question to a subject, the question words Who and What are used. The word order with them remains exactly the same as in a positive sentence. And most importantly, no auxiliary verbs are used. For example:
Sam is talking to Katy. — Who is talking to Katy?
The accident happened yesterday. — What happened yesterday?
He can do it. — Who can do it?
The interrogative words Who and What are used when we ask a question to a complement (answers questions in oblique cases). In this case, you will need auxiliary verbs:
Sam is talking to Katy. — Who is Sam talking to?
They bought a new car yesterday. — What did they buy?
He can do it. — What can he do?
Important! Pay attention to the use of prepositions in questions!
The words what and who agree with a singular verb, so remember to add the ending “s” to the predicate in a subject question, for example:
They speak Spanish. — Who speak s Spanish?
Question words which, whose, how many and how much
The interrogative words which, whose, how many and how much can also build a question to the subject. In this case, they must be used together with a noun:
The bedroom has two windows. — Which room has two windows?
Tom's dog is playing in the garden. — Whose dog is playing in the garden?
A lot of people live here. — How many people live here?
Some money has been paid. — How much money has been paid?
If you use these question words to ask a question to the complement, you will need auxiliary verbs:
I will choose Room 7. — Which room will you choose?
Ruth is walking Tom's dog. — Whose dog is Ruth walking?
I asked a few people. — How many people did you ask?
I paid some money. — How much money did you pay?
Lesson assignments
Task 1. Ask a question to the subject using who, what, which, whose, how many or how much.
- These flowers look wonderful.
- So many people call here every day.
- My brother works in the Zoo.
- Rachel is coming to see us.
- Mum's bag is in the car.
- Red house is the biggest.
- Miss Morstan will go to Paris.
- The flight has been delayed.
Task 2. Ask a question about the highlighted word.
School Mary Vanna has done her best to make you remember that every question in English must contain an auxiliary verb. And she cannot be blamed for this. But for some reason, a special type of question remains unattended - a question to the subject. It is not surprising that when studying the topic Subject Questions It is very difficult for many students to understand: How is this a special question and without an auxiliary verb?
Indeed, this type of question exists and is very often used. And, in order to correctly construct questions to the subject, you need to understand once and for all what subject and what is addition. Let's start with this.
Subject in a sentence - the one who acts, the actor, maybe not even a person, but an inanimate object. The subject always answers the question: Who? What? In English grammar terminology, this is subject.
Addition in a sentence - this is the one to whom the action is directed. Answers case questions: Whom? What? To whom? Why? By whom? How? and so on. In English grammar terminology it is called object.
John called Kate.
Who acted in this situation, who called? John. This is subject. Who is the action aimed at, who did they call? Kate. This is object.
If we need to ask about any of them, we will use a question word who.
Let's say we know that John called someone. We ask: Who did John call?
Who did John call? —Who did John call?
This is an object question because we know the subject. The word order of this question is indirect; there is an auxiliary verb did that comes before the subject.
And we will answer this question like this:
Kate. John called Kate.
But if it's the other way around, we know that someone called Kate. How to ask who called her? In this matter, we need to find out who the actor was. Let's try this:
Who did Kate call? -Who did Kate call?
This question is grammatically correct, but similar to the one we asked above, just with a different name. In this case, from the question it turns out that Kate called someone, in this question Kate is the subject, the active person. But she didn’t call anyone, someone called her. The situation is distorted. We need another question.
Let's try it differently:
Who did call Kate?
This question is completely incorrect from a grammatical point of view. The word order is broken. First there should be a question word (who), then an auxiliary verb (did), then the subject... Stop, but we don’t have information about the subject, we just need to find out WHO called, who performed the action.
Finally, we come to the most basic thing.
To ask a question to the subject, we don't need to swap or add anything. You just need to replace the unknown subject with the question word who:
Somebody called Kate.
Who called Kate? -John. John called Kate.
The rule is very simple: if you need to find out who performed the action, then in the question, instead of the unknown subject, the question word who is put and the word order does not change.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated in constructing a question to the subject, but there is one more problem: how to distinguish subject question from object question? Let's look at the comparative characteristics again:
Let's imagine ourselves as extremely curious, and use examples to look at how to ask different types of questions:
The thief stole his bag. - A thief stole his bag.
See you at the training!
And don't forget to subscribe to our communities at
Whose is used both as a pronoun and as a question word. We ask a question beginning with "whose" when we want to know who something belongs to, is associated with, or has a direct connection with.
1. Using “whose” in questions about whether something belongs to someone:
“I found this pen. Whose is it?”
(I found a pen. Whose is it?)
“It's mine. I lost it yesterday.”
(Mine. I lost it yesterday.)
“I found this bag of books under the desk. Whose could it be?"
(I found this bag of books under the table. Whose bag could it be?)
"It must belong to one of the students."
(It must be one of the students.)
“I found these tools in the garage. Whose are they?”
(I found these tools in the garage. Whose are they?)
“They're Tom's. I borrowed them from him to repair the windows."
(This is Tom. I took them from him yesterday to fix the window.)
“Whose notebooks are these?”
(Whose notebooks are these?)
“They belong to the journalist who was here this morning.”
(They belong to the journalists who were here this morning.)
"Whose dog was running over in the street?"
(Whose dog was hit on the street?)
“It was my neighbor's dog. She's very upset."
(It was my neighbor's dog. She was very upset.)
“Whose car was stolen from the car park?”
(Whose car was stolen from the parking lot?)
"The marketing manager's."
(Marketing manager.)
The note: In the first three examples, "whose" was used as a pronoun. In the last three examples, "whose" is a modifier before a noun.
Don't forget to spell this word. It is often confused with "who's", which is a shortened form of "who is".
2. Using “whose” in questions about the connection or association of someone with something:
“Whose fault was it?”
(Whose fault was it?)
“We don’t know yet. In fact, the fire could have been accidental."
(We don't know yet. In fact, the fire may have happened by accident.)
“Whose responsibility is it to lock up the office after the cleaners have gone?”
(Who is responsible for closing the office after the cleaners leave?)
"The caretaker should do that."
(The guards must do this.)
« Whose job is it to send out information to shareholders?”
(Who should send information to shareholders?)
“It’s the managing director’s secretary who does that.”
(The general manager's secretary should do this.)
3. You can also use "whose" on its own, especially when replying to someone:
“I know whose car that is.”
(I know whose car it is.)
"Whose?"(Whose?)
"It belongs to the new designer."
(It belongs to a new designer.)
“I’ve found out whose dog it was that attacked you.”
(I realized whose dog attacked you.)
"Whose?"(Whose?)
“It’s our new next-door neighbor’s.”
(This is our new neighbor's dog.)
Dialogues
Mobile dispute(Mobile phone dispute)
Whose mobile rank just now? (Whose cell phone just rang?)
- It was mine. Why? (Mine. What?)
- You’re supposed to switch it off in here. (It needs to be turned off here.)
- Who says? (Who said that?)
- It’s a school rule. (This is a school rule.)
- I was told that that just applied to the classrooms. This is the common room. (I was told that this only applies to classrooms. This is a regular room.)
- Whoever told you that? (Who told you that?)
- I don’t remember. In any case, who cares? There are no teachers here. (I don't remember. Anyway, who cares?)
- A lot of the other students will be annoyed if you use it in here. Some of them come here to do some extra studying. (Many students will be annoyed if you use it here. Some come here to study.)
- Well, I come here to relax and read magazines. Whose books are these on this chair? (Well, I come here to relax and read magazines. Whose books are these on the chair?)
- They're mine. I'll just move them. (Mine. I'll put them away now.)
- Thanks. By the way, whose job is it to tidy up in here? (Thanks. By the way, who cleans up here?)
- The school cleaner cleans it, but we’re all responsible for keeping it tidy. Who left those dirty coffee mugs there? (The school cleaner, but we are all responsible for keeping this place clean. Who left the coffee stains here?)
-Who knows? The place was empty when I came in. (Who knows? It was empty when I walked in.)
A missing letter(missed letter)
Who's that man in the waiting room, Mrs Smith? I assume he's a parent. (Who is the man in the waiting room, Mrs. Smith? I'm guessing it's a parent.)
- That's Mr Brown, Mr Jackson. (This is Mr. Brown, Mr. Jackson.)
-Whose father is he? We have several students called Brown. (Whose father is he? We have several students here with the last name Brown.)
- He’s Jack Brown’s father in Year 3. Mr Brown’s here to complain about not receiving a letter he wrote about bullying. (He is the father of Jack Brown in third grade. Mr. Brown came to complain that you didn't receive his bullying letter.)
- To whom did he send the letter? I certainly have never seen such a letter. (Who was he sending this letter to? I have never seen such a letter.)
- He said that he addressed it to you, Mr Jackson, but I haven’t seen it either. Who opened your mail when I was on holiday last week? I know the temp only worked in the afternoons. (He said he addressed it to you, Mr. Jackson. But I didn't see it either. Who opened your mail while I was on vacation last week?)
- I opened the letter myself and there was none from Mr Brown. Who is said to be bullying whom? (I opened the letters myself, and there was none from Mr. Brown. Who was intimidating whom?)
- Mr Brown says that Jack is being bullied by Tom White and Bill Jones. (Mr. Brown says Jack is being bullied by Tom White and Bill Jones.)
- Well, I won’t tolerate bullying in this school. Please ask Mr Brown to come into my office, Mrs Smith. (Well, I don't tolerate bullying at this school. Please ask Mr. Brown to come to my office, Mrs. Smith.)
- Certainly, Mr Jackson. (Of course, Mr. Jackson.)
Questions to the Subject, or Subject Questions, are one of the five types of questions in English grammar. Undoubtedly, its design is the simplest and most understandable. To master it you will have to spend quite a bit of time. Many publications on English grammar do not classify it as a separate type, but attach it to special issues. Despite the fact that the Question to the Subject begins with a special word, its structure is sharply different from the Special Question. Therefore, I still believe that it should be studied as a separate type to avoid confusion. What is the subject?
What is a Question to the Subject and why is it needed?
Questions to the subject (Subject Questions) in English are questions that are asked in order to obtain additional information. From the name it is clear that the information relates directly to the main member of the sentence - the subject.
Subject Questions in English always begin with the question words “who?” and “what?”, which are respectively translated as “who?” So what?". These interrogative pronouns are full members of the sentence. Since the interrogative pronoun replaces the member of the sentence to which the question is asked, in this case it performs the function of the subject.
Subject Questions are the only type of question in the English language that does not have inversion. The word order in a subject question remains the same as in a declarative sentence. Therefore, compiling Subject Questions is not particularly difficult.
It must be emphasized that the question to determine the subject is built on the same principle, without changing the order of words in the sentence. The question to determine the subject begins with one of the following interrogative words: “what” - “which”, “which” - “which”, “whose” - “whose”, “how much” / “how many” - “how much”, for followed by a noun. An interrogative pronoun followed by a noun also functions as a subject.
Education Rules Subject Questions
Composing a Question to the Subject and its Definition is a momentary task that absolutely everyone can handle. A question to the subject begins with the pronoun who for animate nouns and what for inanimate nouns. The question to determine the subject is from the words what, which, whose, how much / how many. The question word is followed by a verb. Thus, in questions to the subject and its definition, direct word order is maintained, as in a declarative sentence. 
How is a Question to the Subject formed?
The principle of compiling Subject Questions is as follows:
We take a declarative sentence, find the subject, and replace it with the appropriate interrogative pronoun. That's all!
But still there is one small nuance that should not be forgotten. In the present tense, the verb in a question to the subject must be in the 3rd person, singular form (i.e. you need to add the ending "-s"). Since we do not know what answer may follow, it is customary to use the 3rd person. In Russian the situation is similar.
Let's move on to the questions themselves in English, or rather to the examples, and you will understand everything right away.
- She can speak Spanish very well - She can speak Spanish very well
- Instead of the subject “she” we put the pronoun “who”. We rewrite the rest of the sentence without changes.
- Who can speak Spanish very well? — Who can speak Spanish very well?
- She speaks Spanish very well - She speaks Spanish very well
- Who speaks Spanish very well? — Who speaks Spanish very well?
- I am a teacher - I am a teacher
- In order to ask the question “who is the teacher?” we must put the verb “am” in the 3rd person singular (according to the rule) → i.e. we will use the verb “is” in the question.
- Who is a teacher? - Who is the teacher?
- Surely you now remember the phrase “Who is who?” − Who is who?
- The books are in the classroom - Textbooks in the classroom
- What is in the classroom? — What is in the classroom?
- They speak to her - They speak to her
- In this sentence, to ask a question you need to add an ending to the verb.
- Who speaks to her? -Who is talking to her?
If the verb in a sentence is in the past or future tense, it does not change. For example:
- They worked hard yesterday - They worked hard yesterday
- Who worked hard yesterday? — Who worked hard yesterday?
- We will do it tomorrow - We will do it tomorrow
- Who will do it tomorrow? -Who will do it tomorrow?
Now we will give several examples of Questions to Determine the Subject. Let's take a declarative sentence. We find the definition of the subject and use the corresponding word instead (what, which, whose, how much / how many). We leave the rest of the proposal unchanged. Note that the subject is retained, but the verb is not placed before it.
- My sister is a teacher - My sister is a teacher
- Whose sister is a teacher? - Whose sister is the teacher?
- Green pencils are on the table - Green pencils on the table
- What pencils are on the table? − What pencils are on the table?
Answers to Subject Questions
Subject Questions usually require a short answer that consists of a subject and an auxiliary or modal verb.
- Who has eaten all the apples? - Jim has (Who ate all the apples? - Jim)
- What can be done here? - Nothing can (What can be done in this case? - Nothing)
- Who must clean up the office? — Olga must (Who should clean the office? — Olga)
- Who plays the tennis there? - Helen does (Who plays tennis? - Lena)
If the verbs to be and to have are used in their semantic meaning, then the auxiliary verb is not needed.
- What is that? - That is a car (What is this? - This is a car)
- Who has the power? - The Parliament has. (Who has the power? - Parliament)
In colloquial speech, in response to a question to the subject, the auxiliary or modal verb may be omitted.
- Who has sang it? — Peter (Who sang this? — Petya)
- What is that? - A car (What is this? - Car)
Watch video lessons on the topic: “Questioning a subject in English”