Questions and answers

Let’s look at an English sentence and the kinds of questions that can be formed from the words:

Every day the children’s voices grew louder and louder, because Grandpa always played his radio so loudly.

The following questions can be asked of the various elements in this sentence:



How often did the children’s voices grow louder and louder?
Whose voices grew louder and louder every day?
What grew louder and louder every day?
Did the children’s voices grow louder and louder every day?
Did the children’s voices grow quieter and quieter every day?
How did the children’s voices grow every day?
Why did the children’s voices grow louder and louder every day?
Who always played his radio so loudly?
How often did Grandpa play his radio so loudly?
What did Grandpa always play so loudly?
Did Grandpa always play his radio so loudly?
Did Grandpa ever play his radio quietly?
Whose radio did Grandpa always play so loudly?
What happened every day as a result of Grandpa always playing his radio so loudly?
.

In the same way, a German sentence can be separated into these kinds of sentence elements, and questions can be formed about them as well. Knowing how to do this effectively will help you to write better sentences.

Too often, learners assume that there are only a couple of questions to be derived from a sentence. But, in fact, nearly each word in a sentence can serve as a cue for a question. Let’s look at a simple example first:

Seine Geschwister lebten in Darmstadt bei der Tante eines Freundes.

    His brothers and sisters lived in Darmstadt with the aunt of a friend.

Now let’s look at the questions you can ask. Some can inquire into the subject of the sentence and the words that modify it:

Wessen Geschwister lebten in Darmstadt      Whose brothers and sisters lived in Darmstadt
bei der Tante eines Freundes?                           with the aunt of a friend?
Wer lebte in Darmstadt bei der Tante             Who lived in Darmstadt with the aunt of a
eines Freundes?                                                     friend?
Lebten seine Eltern in Darmstadt bei der       Did his parents live in Darmstadt with the aunt           Tante eines Freundes?                                            of a friend?

Some questions will ask about location:

Wo lebten seine Geschwister?                                      Where did his brothers and sisters live?

 Bei wem lebten seine Geschwister in Darmstadt?   With whom did his brothers and                                                                                                       sisters live in Darmstadt?

 Lebten seine Geschwister in Berlin bei der               Did his brothers and sisters live in Berlin   Tante eines Freundes?                                                with the aunt of a friend?

Some questions seek to distinguish between two persons or things by inquiring which or what:

                               In welcher Stadt lebten seine Geschwister?

                               In what city did his brothers and sisters live?

    Some questions ask whose to identify a person or thing or to show ownership:

                                  Bei wessen Tante lebten seine Geschwister in Darmstadt? 

                                       With whose aunt did his brothers and sisters live in Darmstadt?

    Some ja-nein questions seek to clarify information in the sentence:

Lebten seine Geschwister in Darmstadt bei dem Onkel eines Freundes?
Did his brothers and sisters live in Darmstadt with the uncle of a friend?
Lebten seine Geschwister in Darmstadt bei der Tante einer Freundin?
Did his brothers and sisters live in Darmstadt with the aunt of a girlfriend?

   When you merely invert the subject and verb, you are asking a general question about all the information in the sentence, and this type of question will require a ja-nein answer:

Lebten seine Geschwister in Darmstadt bei der Tante eines Freundes?

Did his brothers and sisters live in Darmstadt with the aunt of a friend?

    
As you can see, at least eleven questions were able to be derived from a sentence 

   composed of ten words. When you are able to do this on your own, you will have the skill to understand the complexities of a sentence and how to compose your own sentences more accurately.

Wer and was


You are already aware that the interrogative pronouns wer and was are used for questions regard-ing people and things, respectively. Since these pronouns can be declined, the answers to ques-tions that use these words require the use of the same case as the interrogative pronoun. That is, the answer to wer will be a nominative case pronoun or noun such as die Frau, and the answer to wen will be an accusative case pronoun or noun such as den Mann.

  The declension of wer and was:

Nominative:	wer	was
Accusative:	wen	was
Dative:	wem	wem
Genitive (Possessive):	wessen	wessen

     
     Remember that the accusative and dative forms of was are not used after prepositions. Instead, a prepositional adverb is formed, for example: wofür (for what) or wovon (from what).

In summary, interrogative words other than wer and was form questions about adverbial or adjectival expressions: when, why, where, how, and so forth. And if those expressions include a preposition, a prepositional adverb is formed. But remember that prepositional phrases that describe location, motion to a place, or motion from a place require the use of wo, wohin, and woher, respectively:

                      ◆   Location (Where?):

                                   wo + verb of location + subject + ?

Wo + sitzt + er + ?

Where is he sitting?

◆   Motion to a place (Where to?):

wohin + verb of motion + subject + ?

Wohin + geht + er + ?

Where is he going?

◆   Motion from a place (Where from?):

woher + verb of motion + subject + ?

Woher + kommst + du + ?

Where do you come from?

If the verb alone is the target of a question, no interrogative word is required. The verb merely precedes the subject in the question:

 Er lernt Deutsch. He is learning German.

 Lernt er Deutsch?  Is he learning German?