ADVANCED ENGLISH: Mastering Interogative Questions

Interrogative Sentence Questions with Examples

An Interrogative sentence is used to ask direct questions. These sentences are always in question form and are punctuated at the end with a question mark symbol ( ?).
Interrogative in a general sense means to ‘ask a question of something that is why these sentences are there for us, to cross-question, obtain data, clear up our doubts, sound out, etc..
All Interrogative sentences always end with a questions mark (? ) and just like every other type of sentence it has a subject and a predicate.
Interrogative sentences always ask direct questions.

Structure of Interrogative Sentences

Note: Like every other sentence in English an interrogative sentence must also contain a subject and a verb. However, their order would differ here as a verb comes first followed by the subject for example:

When is the show?

In the above example sentence, “Show” is the subject, and “is” is the verb. Notice how the verb comes before the subject in these types of sentences.

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Types of Interrogative Questions

If you have read the above sections carefully by this time you know what interrogative sentences are. Now let’s see different types of question sentences.

1. Open Ended Question

An open-ended question usually Begin with a “question word” in English, following is a list of 9 question words, most of them are from ‘wh-family’ :

who
whom
whose
what
when
where
why
which
how

Have a look at wh-question words To write your open-ended interrogative sentences that start with a question word, then followed by the verb and the subject. Let’s look at the following examples which will give you a view of how they look :

Where is your dog?
When is the party?
What are we doing?
How old are you?

Open Ended Question = Question Word + Verb + Subject .

In some cases, the question word itself serves as the subject of the sentence, because the subject is unknown and if you get the answer to the question you’ll have your subject. for example:

Whose pencil is this?
Who is the best worker here?
Which is the biggest city?

There are times when an interrogative sentence requires a helping verb to clearly put a question. In these cases, the subject is sandwiched between the helping verb and the Main verb of the question. for example:

Why did you do that?

In the above example the subject “you” is the subject that is sandwiched between the helping verb “did” and the Main verb “do” this happens often in the case of direct questions. Let us see some more examples to have a good understanding.

What was he sad about?
Where did I leave my bag?

2. Yes or No Questions

These questions are designed in such a way that they should be answered simply with either an affirmative or a negative. We’ll look at some examples to see how they start with a verb or helping verb followed by the subject.

Did you eat dinner yet?
Is she ready?
Was the party enjoyable?
Is he good?

3. Alternative Questions

These are “or” questions that offer one or more choices to the listener in the context of the question. They also begin with a verb or a helping verb and are followed by the subject. Let us see some examples :

Where are you at home or at the office?
What would you like, tea or coffee?
Will you come or should I go?
Are you angry or just tired?

Notice how the word ‘or’ is used in all of the above examples to ask a yes / no question.

4. Tag questions

Tag questions are added at the very end of the declarative sentence. As we know declarative sentences make a statement and follow standard order where the subject is followed by a verb, but by offsetting it with a common and a short question you can make it an interrogative fragment. Tag questions are usually used to ask for confirmation from the listener. Let us see some examples :

She is pretty, isn’t she?
You will do the dishes, won’t you?
She is a good player, isn’t she?
You are a good boy, aren’t you?

Finally, we have reached the end of the discussion. I hope you have now understood the basic concept of interrogative sentences and will be able to identify whenever you encounter one.