| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| INVERSION IN QUESTIONS |
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| Early Modern English asked many of its questions by simply reversing the positions of subject and verb or subject and predicate: Rides the King to the wars? Think you he will conquer? He will conquer, think you? Today we still use inversion for many questions, but we no longer do it with most of our finite verbs; rather, we do it chiefly with forms of the auxiliaries be, do, have, ought, dare, shall, should, will, would, and the like. The rest of the verb appears later in the sentence, following the subject as usual, but we put the auxiliary first and make it agree with the subject: Is your dog lost? Have they seen any change? Shall I call a cab? Dare we ask for more? | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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