do you think vs. do you know

[norae99]

Dear teachers,

My question is about embedded questions.

Among the following questions,

1) What is this?

2) Do you know what this is?

3) What do you think this is?

4) Do you think what this is?

Why does "what" in 3) come first unlike 2)?

And is 4) grammatically correct?

Thank you in advance

[2006]

Originally Posted by norae99

Dear teachers,

My question is about embedded questions.

Among the following questions,

1) What is this?

2) Do you know what this is?

3) What do you think this is?

4) Do you think what this is?

Why does "what" in 3) come first unlike 2)? Because the questions are different. The two questions may get the same answer, but strictly speaking they are different questions.
"What" comes first in 3) because the question is What? (do you think...).
In 2) the question is 'Do? (you know...).

In English questions, the question word or words almost always come first in the question sentence. If there are more than one question words, the main question word comes first. Consider the following two questions.
1) Do you want to eat something? (the main question is Do)
2) What do you want to eat? (the main question is What)

And is 4) grammatically correct? no

Thank you in advance

2006