Placement of "to be"
(1a) John wonders what the benefits are of doing push ups every day.
(1b) John wonders what the benefits of doing push ups every day are.
(2a) What do you think John's opinion is about letting young children watch violent movies?
(2b) What do you think John's opinion about letting young children watch violent movies is?
My non-native English speaking friends and I learn English from one another. I made up the sentences to talk about at our last meeting. Some of my friends and I think "is/are" should be put right after the noun that the linking verb refers to. My other friends think putting the linking verb at the end makes the sentence sound better to their non-native ears.
What is your opinion? Thanks a lot.
Top answer
We often bring the verb forward like that if a long phrase intervenes. We even go as far as "John wonders what are the benefits of doing pushups [or push-ups ] every day", although that starts to look like a run-in question. I'd say number one can go either way, but number two is almost required.
- We often bring the verb forward like that if a long phrase intervenes.
- We even go as far as "John wonders what are the benefits of doing pushups [or push-ups ] every day", although that starts to look like a run-in question.
- I'd say number one can go either way, but number two is almost required.
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We often bring the verb forward like that if a long phrase intervenes. We even go as far as "John wonders what are the benefits of doing pushups [or push-ups] every day", although that starts to look like a run-in question. I'd say number one can go either way, but number two is almost required.
0All of your sentences are correct. Those labeled b are technically correct in exhibiting normal word order, but because there is such a long distance between subject and verb in those cases, those labeled a are much better sentences.
Changing the position of a long phrase to make a sentence more readable in this way is called "heavy movement". As you can easily deduce, th
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