Tham khảo tài liệu 'english grammar drills part 40', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Indirect Quotation 265 In many languages indirect questions merely repeat the original direct questions after the verb of reporting. Speakers of those languages sometimes carry over into English that way of forming indirect questions. Here is an example of such an error with a yes-no question Direct He asked Are you finished Indirect X He asked are you finished English uses if and less commonly whether in forming indirect yes-no questions. For example Direct He asked Are you finished Indirect He asked if you were finished. Indirect He asked whether you were finished. Notice that the indirect question is punctuated with a period rather than a question mark. There are also two other changes between direct and indirect questions. One of the changes is not new the backshifting of is to was. The other change in the indirect question is new changing the question word order of verb subject are you in this example in the direct quotation to the statement word order of subject verb you were in the indirect quotation. Here are some more examples of the changed word order of indirect yes-no questions with the first verb in bold and the subject in italics Direct He asked Can we go now Indirect He asked if we could go now. Direct He asked Have you finished Indirect He asked if you had finished. Direct He asked Are they OK Indirect He asked if they were OK. If the yes-no question uses the dummy helping verb do the form of the indirect question changes in a surprising way. For example Direct Indirect He asked Does John know where we are going He asked if John knew where we were going. The dummy helping verb do has disappeared from the indirect question. The reason is essentially a side effect of changing the question word order of verb subject in the direct question back to the statement word order of subject verb in the indirect question. Here in slow motion is 266 Sentences what happens when we reverse the positions of the dummy helping verb do and the subject in our example .
