Question patterns

Question

Hello,

Which question is grammatically correct?

A: What do you think is a useful skill to have for a job?

B: What do you think a useful skill to have for a job is?

I think both are grammatical and correct, but a colleague insists that while B is commonly spoken, only A is grammatically correct.

Any thoughts and explanations would be appreciated.

Lloyd

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

For the sake of an example, let's use "the ability to communicate effectively" as the useful skill in question.

The underlying pattern is: X is Y. Since "is" expresses a sort of equality, we can rephrase the pattern as Y is X.

1) The ability to communicate effectively is a useful skill to have for a job.
2) A useful skill to have for a job is the ability to communicate effectively.

Express these in a "do you think?" context:

1) Do you think the ability to communicate effectively is a useful skill to have for a job?
2) Do you think a useful skill to have for a job is the ability to communicate effectively?

Substitute the question word "what" for the communication skill, thus:

1) Do you think [what] is a useful skill to have for a job?
2) Do you think a useful skill to have for a job is [what]?

To form a grammatically correct "what" question, we move the question word to the beginning.

1) What do you think is a useful skill to have for a job ?
2) What do you think a useful skill to have for a job is?

Due to the comparatively gigantic phrase between "think" and "is", the second choice is a bit awkward; however, I don't see it as ungrammatical.

Compare with sentences having shorter constituents:

1) Who do you think will be the President of the U.S. next year?
2) Who do you think the President of the U.S. will be next year?

Do you find either of these particularly troublesome grammatically?
Probably not, right? And probably your colleague doesn't either.

On the other hand, without the "do you think", we get:

1) Who will be the President of the U.S. next year?
2) Who the President of the U.S. will be next year?

Yikes! What happened in Case 2? The question for the linguists is "Why?"
I suspect it's because when we change "President will be" from a dependent clause to an independent clause (by removing the "do you think" which was the original main clause), we now have to pull the auxiliary "will" to the beginning as well, giving the grammatical equivalent:
"Who WILL the President of the U.S. be next year?"

This gives instead:
1) Who will be the President of the U.S. next year?
2) Who will the President of the U.S. be next year?

Now harmony is restored, and we again have two contrasting but completely grammatical sentences.

Now the question is: "What if it were 'is' instead of 'will be'?"
This illustrative configuration pair is left as an exercise to the reader!!!

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