Questions with 'do'

Question

where does the 'do' come from in questions like 'do you like tea?'

Pemmican · Accepted Answer

In former times, questions were built by a so called 'inversion', that means Subject and Verb of the actual sentence changed positions:

Examples:
You like tea. -----> Question: Like you tea?
He likes tea. -----> Question: Likes he tea?

This was possible as word order did not loom very large, special functions and meanings of words were expressed especially by inflections and special cases.
Little by little, English lost most of its inflections and cases, so functions and meanings needed to be expressed in another way: word order became very important now!

Today, English has a very strict word order within the sentences, it's almost always
Subject-Verb-Object in 'normal' sentences (You like tea) and
HelpingVerb-Subject-Verb-Object in question-clauses (Do you like tea?);

Inversions as above tend to be dropped, remain though especially in questions with 'be' as a full verb: "Are you happy?" (NOT: Do you be happy?) and in poetical style, but the word-order-method is much more effective as it's more economic: Instead of words changing positions, they remain at their place all the time and so the order is not disturbed, not even in questions.

The helping verb is always the same verb which would also occur in the actual stative sentence:
You 'have' seen him ----> Question: 'Have' you seen him?
You 'can' help me -----> Question: 'Can' you help me?
You will show me the park ----> Question: 'Will' you show me the park?

IF there's no helping verb (which can only be true for simple present and simple past tense clauses) then 'do' occurs as a substitute - just to keep the word order again:
You like tea ----> 'Do' you like tea?
You liked tea? ----> 'Did' you like tea?

I hope I could help you out, greetz
Pemmican

Maj · Answer

These questions can be answered by short answers as well as long ones.

Do you like tea?
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do but I prefer coffee.

Can you help me?
Yes, I can.
Yes, I can help you. What would you like me to do?

Have you seen him?
Yes, I have
Yes, I have seen him out of the window.

Will you show me the park?
Yes, I will.
Yes, I'll show you the park when you come.

Hope they help. Cheers.

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