About the meaning of "where"

Question

Hello there.I have a strong question about the word. English doesn't have a visible accusative case. Therefore it is a logical problem in interrogating sentences like this: "Where are you going?" or "Where do you fly?".  What can the questions mean? Location, where the asked person is now? Or a place, which the person is going to arrive at?

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Where are you? - This asks where you are, right now. Your current location.
Where are you gonig? - This asks what your destination is.

Khoff · Answer

As for "where do you fly," context would usually make the meaning clear. And it seems to mean that when indicating destination, we would usually use "flying." Here are some examples:

Look at those geese -- where are they all flying?
South.

I have to be at the airport at 5 a.m.
Oh, where are you flying?
Moscow.

Sometimes it could be ambiguous:
I take flying lessons once a week.
Oh, where do you fly?
Usually to Colorado Springs and back.
No, I meant "where do you take the lessons?"
Oh - at Centennial Airport.

English used to have distinct words corresponding to ??? (where) ???? (whither) and ?????? (whence), but they are now obsolete. You might come across them in Shakespeare, or the Bible.

By the way, I'm not sure that "accusative case" describes what you're asking -- but I don't know what I would call it.

Goodman · Answer

Where are you flying? - this is not a correct question. You need a preposition to complete this question. i.e.Where is Mary flying to on this trip?
Where were you^{flying from} = Which airport did your flight originate from?

Anonymous · Answer

Oh, thanks a lot!

khoffBy the way, I'm not sure that "accusative case" describes what you're asking -- but I don't know what I would call it.

You are right. That's I just forgot that using of accusative case is different in different languages. In slavic languages and Esperanto location (??? = where) is a nominative case, destination (????=whither) is an accusative case. Maybe it is so in some other european languages, I don't know exactly.

khoffAs for "where do you fly," context would usually make the meaning clear. And it seems to mean that when indicating destination, we would usually use "flying." Here are some examples:

In addition I would like to know, is every verb of movement concerned with tense this way?

BarbaraPA · Answer

You know, this is more interesting/complex than I realized at first.

Let's say your friend is on holiday and calls you. He says, "My family is on a skiing vacation." You say, "How lovely for you? Where are you skiiing?" Clearly the answer is not "down the mountain" (the path) or "to the lodge" (the destination) but "Park City, Utah," or "Switzerland" or... whereever it is that the entire activity of skiiing is taking place.

Context is going to tell you a lot about how to use these words.

Anonymous · Answer

GoodmanWhere are you flying? - this is not a correct question. You need a preposition to complete this question. i.e.Where is Mary flying to on this trip?
Where were you^{flying from} = Which airport did your flight originate from?

Thanks!
I saw this post later than the previous one, so as I said there I would like to know if it is general rule for all the verbs of movement, or each one deserves individual cure?
By the way, thefreedictionary.com tells: (I hope I wont be punished for advertising):

dictionaryWhen where is used to refer to a point of origin, the preposition from is required: Where did she come from? From where I sit, the situation looks bleak. When it is used to refer to a destination, the preposition to is generally superfluous: Where is she going (rather than Where is she going to)? The place where they are going is beautiful.. When it is used to refer to the location of a person, event, or structure, the use of at is widely regarded as regional or colloquial: Where is the station (not Where is the station at)? Where he is, he has no access to a good library.

Anonymous · Answer

AnonymousIn slavic languages and Esperanto location (??? = where) is a nominative case, destination (????=whither) is an accusative case.

Oh, I did a mistake here. Surely it is prepositional case rather than nominative in slavic languages, or most of them.

Khoff · Answer

I guess that I agree with freedictionary this time, and respecfully disagree with Goodman. I don't think "where are you going?" (or "where are you flying?") absolutely requires "to," although in some case it would eliminate ambiguity. Besides, if you insist on the "to," you will either annoy the people who insist (wrongly) that one should never end a sentence with a preposition -- or you will end up saying things like "To where are you going?" which sounds very, very odd.

As to your question about whether this applies to all verbs of motion -- I would guess that it does, but I haven't thought it out very thoroughly.

Velimir · Answer

I'll try to give some information on this as a non-professional.This is how it looks like in the serbian language,and I suppose,it is very similar in all other slavic languages and also the latin language.

For indicating a location the locative case of a noun is used.If the english language had similar declension of nouns then the nouns following the prepositions "in" and "at" would be in the locative case.The presence of the preceding preposition is obligatory when the noun is in the locative case.

But,if the verb indicates motion,or in plain english,if you are :
going to, flying to, traveling to..

like in the question given in the opening post,then the noun will be in the dative case.This case you can connect with the nouns following the preposition "to" although the preposition is not necessarily present.The word "dative" derives from latin "dare" which means "to give" and the usage is most obvious on the example of that verb:

I gave my girlfriend a flower.

If you translated this in serbian,"girlfriend" would be in the dative case.Indirect object is in the dative case.The direct object ("a flower") is in the accusative case.

"Cases play a major part in determining a noun's syntactic role in the sentence, so word order is not as important in Latin as it is in other languages, such as English. Because of noun cases, words can often be moved around in a sentence without significantly altering its meaning, though the emphasis will have altered" (from a Wikipedia article on the latin language)
Btw,changing nouns,adjectives,pronouns and numbers to different cases is pretty tough area of the language with more cases,and is often lifelong mistery for many natives,and I know that well.Luckily,english is not a case-sensitive language.

Best regards

Goodman · Answer

I hope I didn’t mislead anyone. Here is what I intended to say:

“Where did he come ^from !” . “From“ is absolutely necessary.
“Where did you go? Mom was looking for you? “. No prep. is required in this context.
If you say: “Where are you flying ?”, it's not quite the same as "where are you going?", althoughIt's acceptable, “to” or “from” are required in the "flying" context in my opinion. Although you may hear “where are you flying?” at times.
Where are you going this year for vacation? In this question form, “to” is not required.
I am going to . “To” is required as an answer.
If you talked about your trip with your friend, you may say “ I just came ^{back from} last week....”.
Here, “came back “ definitely requires “from”

About the meaning of "where"

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