Formation of Questions
General rules
1. In questions the auxiliary verb comes before the subject.
- Have you received my letter?
- Were they interested in the offer?
- Did they accept the offer?
2. When there is no other auxiliary verb, we use do, does or did to form a question.
- Do you speak English? (NOT Speak you English?)
- Did she like the gift?
- Does he speak Hindi?
3. If there is an auxiliary verb, we do not use do.
- Can you sing? (NOT Do you can sing?)
- Have you seen James? (NOT Do you have seen James?)
4. After do, does and did, we use the base form of the verb. Note that there is no –s marking in the third person singular.
- Does he sing? (NOT Does he sings?)
- Did she write? (NOT Did she wrote?)
- Did you go swimming last weekend? (NOT Did you went swimming last weekend?)
5. Only the auxiliary verb goes before the subject.
- Is she coming tomorrow? (NOT Is coming she tomorrow?)
- When was your reservation made? (NOT When was made your reservation?)
6. When the subject is a question word (who, which, what, whose), it comes before the verb, and do cannot normally be used.
- Who broke the window? (NOT Who did break the window?)
- What happened? (NOT What did happen?)
7. When a question word is the object, do is used.
- Who do you want to speak to?