Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

WH-QUESTIONS 

427

Questions with what, when, where, which, who(m), whose, why, how request

specific information about something, and the circumstances surrounding actions

and events (e.g. time, manner, place).

The anticipated response to such questions is not yes or no, but information

which provides the missing content of the wh-word:

[discussing a new type of cooking grill]

A: And what did this machinery cost you?

B: Five hundred and fifty pounds.

A: Where is your farm? 

B: Right at the bottom of the lane.

Whose turn is it to wash up?

How are you feeling?

Emphatic wh-questions 427a

A wh-question may include an emphatic do-auxiliary. In speech, the auxiliary is

stressed. Such questions often occur in contexts where the asker feels they have

not been given information they wanted or expected.

Non-emphatic wh-questions do not use auxiliary do when the wh-word is the

subject. Emphatic wh-questions involve do-auxiliary even when the wh-word is

the subject of the verb:

Who wants coffee?

(non-emphatic) 

(Who does want coffee?)

720 | Questions 

Cambridge Grammar of English

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What did happen in the end?

(emphatic)

A: There was hardly anybody there.

B: Oh really? Who did turn up?

(emphatic)

Wh

-questions involving what, who, why, when, where and how (but normally 

not whom or whose) can also be emphasised by the use of on earth, or, even more

emphatically, by using the devil/the hell/the heck/in heaven’s name after the 

wh

-word. The latter group should be used with care, and may cause offence,

though the heck is rather mild and less likely to cause offence:

What on earth are you doing?

Oh, 

what the hell does he want?

Why on earth did it take so long?

How the heck did you come to do that?