[Grammar] "what do you think..."

[Glizdka]

Hello, here's something that bothers me a lot (a lot more than it probably should):
I know that additional information should not be inverted in interrogative sentences ("can you tell me what this is?", not "can you tell me what is this?") because the main clause contains the actual question to be answered, the additional information only makes the question more precise, and therefore, it isn't inverted. This is the logic that let me go through quite difficult and complex sentence structures. Now here's the catch, this is something that I see in assignment topics:

"What do you think is the meaning of life?".

It bothers me that there's "do you think" and "is the meaning", two inverted sentences, something that contradicts my previous approach. I started thinking of "do you think" as a parenthetical bit, something that can be removed from the sentence.

"What do you think is the meaning of life?"

This made sense to me until I encountered this as an assignment topic:

"What do you think the future will look like?"
"What do you think the future will look like?"

Removing "do you think" from the sentence makes it ungramatical, so I should not treat it as parenthetical information. It bothers me now... could someone please help me out? How should I see it? Do you have a good explanation for this? Also, which of the two following sentences is correct? Is it both, depending on the context? Help!

(1) "What do you think would be the best solution?"
(2) "What do you think the best solution would be?"

 

[Tarheel]

You can use either sentence (1 or 2).


"What do you think I should do now?"

You can find thousands of examples in which you cannot remove "What do you think?" from a sentence without rendering it totally nonsensical.

 

[Glizdka]

You can use either sentence (1 or 2)

Is there a difference in meaning? Even a slight one?
Why can I use either of them here, but can't use "What do you think will future look like?"

 

[Tarheel]

Is there a difference in meaning? Even a slight one?
Why can I use either of them here, but I can't use "what do you think will the future look like?"

Well, it's fine like that (with "the"). Why you need the definite article (the) is a bit harder for me to answer, but there are people on this forum who can answer that question.

As for those sentences, they are just two ways of asking the same question.

 

[Glizdka]

You can use either sentence (1 or 2).
...

If that's correct, then we can say "What, do you think, is their attitude towards you?", but can't say "What, do you think, their attitude towards you is?".
Am I right?

 

[emsr2d2]

If that's correct, then we can say "What, do you think, is their attitude towards you?", but can't say "What, do you think, their attitude towards you is?" (no full stop here.)
[STRIKE]AM[/STRIKE] Am I right?

Actually, both versions are possible. However, it would be much more natural to use the second one without the commas.

 

[Tarheel]

Is there a difference in meaning? Even a slight one?
Why can I use either of them here, but can't use "what do you think will future look like?"

I goofed! I misread that earlier. It should of course be:

"What do you think the future will look like?"

Your sentence is ungrammatical.

 

[Tarheel]

Thanks to Ems for making that more readable. (I do, of course, agree with her. )

 

[Glizdka]

Thank you. Now everything's clear. This was precisely what I needed.