2

Can you tell me please, which variant is better:

  1. What do you think is the most serious problem in the world?

or,

  1. What do you think the most serious problem in the world is?
F.E.
  • 6,208
Thelastpolaris
  • 123
  • 1
    Both are fine. The first one forms the question word What from the Subject of is the most serious problem in the world. The second one forms it from the Predicate Noun of the most serious problem in the world is. Question-Formation is not a governed rule and can pick any noun phrase at all to question with what. – John Lawler Mar 09 '15 at 18:08
  • You can ask: "What IS the most serious problem?" But never, "What the most serious problem IS?" The [What] do you think is already in the interrogative form. – Mari-Lou A Mar 09 '15 at 20:16
  • Ok, thank you. From now I will be using both of them. – Thelastpolaris Mar 09 '15 at 20:25
  • 1
    @Mari-LouA Is you sayin that that there second example ain't grammatical? – Araucaria - Him Mar 10 '15 at 02:14
  • 1
    @Araucaria I was illustrating that the 2nd sentence becomes ungrammatical when "do you think" is missing, i.e. What [do you think]the most serious problem IS? – Mari-Lou A Mar 10 '15 at 07:45
  • @Mari-LouA Quite right! – Araucaria - Him Mar 10 '15 at 12:02
  • @Mari-LouA While your comments true, it's being a bit counterproductive at the moment because this question's being voted to be closed as a dupe of a question about subject auxiliary inversion in subordinate clauses ... :( – Araucaria - Him Mar 10 '15 at 14:08
  • 1
    I doubt my comments were influential. But the "dupe" is NOT a dupe. It is asking something quite different. – Mari-Lou A Mar 10 '15 at 14:12

1 Answers1

2

What do you think is the most serious problem in the world?

What do you think the most serious problem in the world is?

Both of these are grammatical. In each case the what is derived from the subordinate content clause which functions as the complement of the verb think. There are gaps in the subordinate clause where we would expect there to be some phrase, which is now missing. The interrogative word, what, serves as the antecedent for these gaps. The word what and the gap have the same index, they refer to the same thing. It may make it easier to understand the grammar of the two sentences if we show where the gaps actually are:

  • What(i) do you think [ ___(i) is the most serious problem in the world ]?

  • What(i) do you think [ the most serious problem in the world is ___(i) ]?

Or it can help to think of the sentences like this:

  • What do you think [ this is the most serious problem in the world ]?
  • What do you think [ the most serious problem in the world is this ]?

Both sentences are perfectly grammatical and well-formed.

Community
  • 1
Araucaria - Him
  • 47,146