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Meanwhile, if interrogative question is used for gaining information about any sentence elements except subject, the
wh
-word must be followed by the operator auxiliary which in turn is followed by the subject and predication Quirk,
Greenbaum, Leech, Svartvik, 1973.
5. The Construction of Interrogative Word Questions
Formal interrogative word questions should be constructed properly by following the rules. As Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1973 state,
interrogative word questions begin with a
wh
-word formally which should be followed by the auxiliary or operator, then it is followed by the subject and
predication. Agree with Quirk and Greenbaum, Close 1977 as cited in Febrianti 2004 proposes three different patterns of interrogative words question
constructions.
Table 2.1 Different Patterns of Interrogative Word Question
No. Types
Patterns Examples
1. Question asking for subject
Interrogative Word + Predicate + ?
e.g Who broke the jar? 2.
Question asking for information excluding the subject
Interrogative Word + Operator + Rest of VP + ?
e.g When did she break the jar? 3.
Modification of interrogative word question
Interrogative phrase + Operator + Subject + Rest of VP + ?
e.g How many times did she break a jar? The important thing that should be noticed in the interrogative word
question constructions is the element movement. Actually, to construct an interrogative word question there are some element that should be moved from the
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previous position. They are the operator and the
wh
-phrase. Those movements are called by operator movement and
wh
-movement. O’ Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, and Miller 1997 figure out how to
construct interrogative word questions related to operator movement, which is called as inversion, and
wh
-movement. The interrogative word construction according to O’ Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, and Miller is shown in the figure 2.3
as follows: What can the child ______ sit on ______?
Inversion wh-movement
Figure 2.3 Inversion and Wh-Movement
O’ Grady et al., 1997, p. 207
Quirk and Greenbaum also state that the rules of changing a statement into
wh
-question is not merely about placing the
wh
-element in the initial position but also about the inversion of subject and operator except when the
wh
-element is subject 1990. In addition, Dulay, Burt, and Krashen 1982 state that in
wh
- question construction the speaker has to place a
wh
-word before the rest of the question. At the same time, the subject noun must exchange its place with an
auxiliary if there is any auxiliary in the statement sentence. However, if there is no auxiliary in the sentence, for example,
“They cook rice every day” then auxiliary ‘do’ must be inserted in the
wh
-question construction as “What do they cook
every day? ” The rules of constructing
wh
-questions are applicable for negative
wh
-questions as well.
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6. Language Errors
