Where do you think he lives?

Mori

Mori

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Joined
Mar 31, 2008
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Isfahan
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English Teacher
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Persian
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Iran
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Iran
Here's a direct question: Where does he live?
And here's an indirect question: Do you know where he lives?
Can we call the following "a split indirect question/noun clause"?
Where do you think he lives?

P.S. It's my made-up term.
 
You can call it whatever you like. Are you asking whether you should use it with your students?
 
jutfrank said:
Are you asking whether you should use it with your students?
Click to expand...
No, I'm just checking my own understanding of the structure and wonder how you analyze it.
 
I don't know what a grammarian would call this structure. As a teacher, I'd imaginatively class this kind of question as 'questions with "do you think" in the middle' or 'questions embedding "do you think"' or something like that. We teachers are not too concerned about precision of terminology, as long as the learners understand the structure and use.

Do you need help with the understanding the structure?
 
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Mori said:
Here's a direct question: Where does he live?
And here's an indirect question: Do you know where he lives?
Can we call the following "a split indirect question/noun clause"?
Where do you think he lives?

P.S. It's my made-up term.
Click to expand...

If you really want to know the grammar of your examples, then this may help:

[1] Do you know [where he lives]?

[2] Wherei do you think [he lives ___i ]?

The bracketed element in [1] is a subordinate interrogative clause (embedded question) functioning straightforwardly as complement of "know". The meaning is: "Do you know the answer to the question 'Where does he live?'"

[2] is more tricky. The interrogative word "where" is a prenuclear element co-indexed to the gap '___' in the bracketed subordinate clause where it functions as complement of the verb "lives".

You also mentioned the term 'noun clause'. I would recommend dropping the term. It is better to base the classification of finite subordinate clauses on their internal form rather than on spurious analogies with the parts of speech.
 
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PaulMatthews said:
If you really want to know the grammar of your examples, then this may help:

[1] Do you know [where he lives]?

[2] Wherei do you think [he lives ___i ]?

The bracketed element in [1] is a subordinate interrogative clause (embedded question) functioning straightforwardly as complement of "know". The meaning is: "Do you know the answer to the question 'Where does he live?'"

[2] is more tricky. The interrogative word "where" is a prenuclear element co-indexed to the gap '___' in the bracketed subordinate clause where it functions as complement of the verb "lives".

You also mentioned the term 'noun clause'. I would advise you to drop that term. It is better to base the classification of finite subordinate clauses on their internal form rather than on spurious analogies with the parts of speech.
Click to expand...
Useful explanation! 🙏
 
PaulMatthews said:
If you really want to know the grammar of your examples, then this may help:

[1] Do you know [where he lives]?

[2] Wherei do you think [he lives ___i ]?

The bracketed element in [1] is a subordinate interrogative clause (embedded question) functioning straightforwardly as complement of "know". The meaning is: "Do you know the answer to the question 'Where does he live?'"

[2] is more tricky. The interrogative word "where" is a prenuclear element co-indexed to the gap '___' in the bracketed subordinate clause where it functions as complement of the verb "lives".

You also mentioned the term 'noun clause'. I would recommend dropping the term. It is better to base the classification of finite subordinate clauses on their internal form rather than on spurious analogies with the parts of speech.
Click to expand...
Is the following a similar case, and basically a grammatical structure? Where, I wonder, he lives.
 
5jj said:
Where, I wonder, does he live?
Click to expand...

There is also the following interesting structure:

Where, do you think, does he live?

I'd have a hard time accounting for the syntax of that structure, but it definitely exists, at least in somewhat rhetorical English. "Think" could easily be replaced with "suppose": Where, do you suppose, does he live?

Also, for what its worth, in Southern dialect here in the U.S., I believe it is possible to say, e.g., Where does he live, reckon?, which seems somewhat similar. But I live in California, where "reckon" is seldom heard.

Mori, I'm just advancing the discussion a little with a curious tangent. I'm not recommending that you actually use any of these variants.
 
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