“What happened (to my father)?”

This is a subject question because “what” (the question word) is the subject of the verb “happened”. The subject questions don’t take auxiliary verbs

Below are subject questions. The verb and its subject are bolded and italicized. The speaker is expecting the answer to be the subject of the sentence:

• What killed him? – A croc. (A crocodile killed him.)

• Who killed him? – A burglar. (A burglar killed him).

• Who ate the last piece of cake? – He did. (He ate the last cake.)

• Who wants to go to the cinema? – I do. (I want to go to the cinema.)

• What kept you so late? – My work. (My work kept me late.)

• What happened to my father? – Nothing. (Nothing happened to your father.)

“When did (it) happen?”

This is an object question because “when” is NOT the subject of the verb happened. In a strange way, this kind of makes “when” as the object while “it” is the subject of the verb.

For example, “What did he write?” – This is an object question. Although “he” is the subject of the question itself, the object of the verb write is actually “an essay” – in the answer (represented by “what”). When a question is about the object, we use an auxiliary verb and an infinitive.

What did he write? – He wrote an essay.

Below are object questions. The verb and its subject are bolded and italicizied. Objects are underlined. We use the normal interrogative structure with two verbs (infinitive + auxiliary):

• What did he do?

• Where does he live?

• When will we arrive?

• Where did it happen?

• Why did it happen?

• When did it happen?

• How did it happen?

WHAT – Question Words

What? – Question Word

WHAT is used both as subject and object of a question; to ask about things.

• What happened? — Nothing. (Nothing happened)

• What do you need? — I need a pen.

WHAT + a form of do is used to ask question about activities. For example, “What did you do last night?” — I studied.

WHAT + be + like asks for general description of qualities. As in, “What is Julie like?” — She’s nice and friendly.

WHAT + look like asks for physical description. Example, “What does Julie look like?” — She’s wearing glasses and has long dark hair.

WHAT + kind of asks about the particular variety or type of something. For example, “What kind of soup is that?” — It’s creamy pumpkin soup.

WHAT may accompany a noun. As in, “What countriesdid you visit? — France and Turkey.

So, what do you think about this lesson? Do you understand how to make questions with WHAT now? Let me know what you think in the comment.