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Newguest Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

indirect/direct questions

0Hi02br
02br
00I've just talked by the internet to someone about indirect and direct questions.02br
02br
00I wrote that:02br
02br
00"Where is Tom?" is a direct question02br
02br
00and02br
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00"Could you tell me where Tom is?" is an indirect question, and he didn't agree. He wrote that this is not an indirect question. He wrote also: "Where is Tom" may SOUND like the question you are asking, but the REAL question is "Could you tell me?" Let's say that A is asking B about Tom. "A" is DIRECTLY QUESTIONING "B."02br
02br
00He gave his examples:02br
02br
00What is wrong with Jim? [DIRECT QUESTION]02br
00His teachers want to know what is wrong with Jim. [INDIRECT QUESTION]02br
02br
00NOTE: The second one is "indirect," because, even though they want to know WHAT?, the sentence is phrased as a statement, or, as you call it "an affirmative sentence."02br
00 I assume that according to him, if I said, "Could you tell me what is wrong with Jim?" this would be a direct question, but in my opinion it is indirect.02br
02br
00What's your opinion about it?0-
  

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7 Answers
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0 Indirect questions can be either questions within questions (as in your example) or questions within reported speech (as in your friend's example).02br
00Look at this link:02br
01a05000 02a00 0250hrefhttp://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/indirect_questions.html
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0<>I wrote that: "Where is Tom?" is a direct question 02br
00and02br
02br
00"Could you tell me where Tom is?" is an indirect question, and he didn't agree. 01font00I don't agree either. The entire sentence is not an indirect question. Indirect questions are always embedded. They are only parts of sentences. 01i
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0Hi02br
02br
00But these sites 01a05000 02a00 01a05100 02a00 in my opinion say something else.02br
02br
00What did she tell her? [direct question]02br
02br
01font
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0 Hi Newguest02br
02br
00Look at it this way: In the following sentences, the 01span01b00direct02b00 questions02span00 are in 01span00blue02span00, and the 01span01b00indirect02b00 questions02spa
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YankeeHi Newguest

Look at it this way: In the following sentences, the direct questions are in blue, and the indirect questions are in red:

- What did she tell him?
- Do you know what she told him?

- I wanted to know what she told him.

As Jim put it, an indirect question is embedded
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AnonymousIs there any such thing as an indirect question by itself then?
No. It has to be imbedded inside a bigger sentence.
CJ
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Could you tell me where Tom is? This is completely an indirect form of question.
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