A Study on Structural and Semantic patterns of Wh-questions in English

A Study on Structural and Semantic patterns of
Wh-questions in English

Nguyễn Văn Cương


Trường Đại học KHXH&NV
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang
Năm bảo vệ: 2011


Abstract: The thesis entitled “A Study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh-
questions in English” is to analyze and illustrate the types of wh-questions and their
semantic features. This one is also to investigate the students' categories of mistakes
when using wh-questions, find out the causes, suggest some possible solutions to these
matters, and propose several pedagogical implications for the teachers at the research site.
This study is divided into three major sections. The first one sets out the rationale of the
study as well as the aims, the methodology and the design of the study. The second
section contains three chapters. Chapter 1 offers the most relevant factors involving a wh-
question such as notions of wh-questions, wh-rhetorical questions, operators, wh-words
and their semantic features relating information structure, presupposition and theme and
rheme. Chapter 2 is to describe the types of wh-questions based on structures and
discourse and the types of presuppositions in wh-questions. Chapter 3 is the study about
the mistakes that the students in Kinh Mon high school often make in using a wh-
question. The data were collected among 100 eleven grade students in Kinh Mon high
school by means of questionnaires. The findings highlighted students’ categories of
mistakes including wrong use of wh-words, wrong use of operators, non-inversion failure
and some other subtypes. Through the findings, the author also assumes some causes of
the mistakes and suggests some possible solutions in order to help students avoid
committing these types of mistakes.

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Cấu trúc; Ngữ nghĩa; Ngữ pháp; Câu hỏi có từ hỏi





iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Retention i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents iv
List of tables vii
Part 1: Introduction 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Objectives of the study 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Methods of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3
Part 2: Development 4
Chapter 1 : Literature review 4
1.1. English questions. 4
1.1.1 Definition of question 4
1.1.2. Definition of Wh-questions in English 5
1.1.2.1 Wh-information question 5
1.1.2.2 Wh-rhetorical questions 6
1.2. English operators 6
1.3. Question words 7

1.3.1. Wh-word functions 7
1.3.1.1. Wh-words as interrogative pronouns 7
1.3.1.2 Wh-words as determiners 10
1.3.1.3. Wh-words as adverbs 10
1.4. Given - New Information Structure 12
1.4.1. Given information 12
1.4.2. New information 12
1.4.3 Information structure 12
1.5. Theme -Rheme Structure 13


v
1.5 Theme- Rheme Structure in wh-questions 14
1.6. Presupposition 15
Chapter 2 : The structural and semantic patterns
of English wh-questions 16
2.1. STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS 16
2.1.1. Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions 16
2.1.2. Non-subject wh-questions 18
2.1.3. Verb-oriented questions 19
2.1.4. Wh-questions with prepositions 20
2.1.5. Emphatic wh-questions. 21
2.1.6. Negative structures in Wh- questions 21
2.1.7. Response questions 21
2.1.7.1. Short response questions 21
2.1.7.2. Wh-echo questions 22
2.1.8. Multiple wh-element Questions 23
2.1.9. Wh-rhetorical questions 24
2.1.10. Formulaic wh-questions 26
2.2. SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS 28

Chapter 3: Errors made by eleventh grade students
in using wh-questions. 31
3.1. Introduction 31
3.2.Setting 31
3.2.1. Setting of the study 31
3.2.2 Participants 31
3.3. Research instrument - Questionnaire 32
3.2.1. Objectives of the survey questionaire 32
3.2.2. The Survey questionnaire 32
3.4. Procedures 33
3.5. Findings 33
3.5.1. Wrong use of wh-word 35
3.5.2. Wrong use of operator 37


vi
3.5.3. Non-inversion failure 39
3.5.4. Other types 40
3.6. The causes of Vietnamese students’ mistakes 41
3.7. Solutions to the problems 42
3.8. Summary of findings 43
PART 3: CONCLUSION 44
1. Conclusions 44
2. Implications of the study for teaching English wh-questions 45
3. Limitations of the study 45
4. Suggestions for further research 46

REFERENCES 47
APPENDIX I

2

ABSTRACT
The thesis entitled “A Study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh-
questions in English” is to analyze and illustrate the types of wh-questions and their semantic
features. This one is also to investigate the students' categories of mistakes when using wh-
questions, find out the causes, suggest some possible solutions to these matters, and propose
several pedagogical implications for the teachers at the research site. This study is divided into
three major sections. The first one sets out the rationale of the study as well as the aims, the
methodology and the design of the study. The second section contains three chapters. Chapter 1
offers the most relevant factors involving a wh-question such as notions of wh-questions, wh-
rhetorical questions, operators, wh-words and their semantic features relating information
structure, presupposition and theme and rheme. Chapter 2 is to describe the types of wh-questions
based on structures and discourse and the types of presuppositions in wh-questions. Chapter 3 is
the study about the mistakes that the students in Kinh Mon high school often make in using a wh-
question. The data were collected among 100 eleven grade students in Kinh Mon high school by
means of questionnaires. The findings highlighted students’ categories of mistakes including
wrong use of wh-words, wrong use of operators, non-inversion failure and some other subtypes.
Through the findings, the author also assumes some causes of the mistakes and suggests some
possible solutions in order to help students avoid committing these types of mistakes.

3


Part 1: Introduction
1. Rationale
It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and
more Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study and their future.
The ability to communicate clearly and efficiently in English contributes to the success of the
learners at school and later in every phase of life. However, the sad fact is that students’ English
proficiency especially their ability to communicate in English orally does not really meet
employers’ demand.
At Kinh Mon High School, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is
considered as a major subject for the high school examination. It is taught with the purpose that
students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to
science and technology. However, there still exist many difficulties facing the students. They
often keep quiet during speaking lessons; they mind speaking English. There are many students
who have good knowledge of grammar, can do reading and writing exercises wonderfully but
they cannot express themselves in English and find it hard to make questions to discuss during
the speaking lessons. They often make mistakes in using the correct question words and in giving
the right form of a wh-question.

Besides making the discussion during a speaking lesson successful, questions also play an
important role in our daily life. We are not able to keep communicating going on well without
asking questions. We ask in order to exchange information, ideas, feeling and knowledge. On the
other hand, we sometimes ask questions not for the above purposes but for confirmation, refusal
irony or reply avoidance. It is undeniable that questions can not be missed in communication.
English wh-questions have long been the subject of the study of many researchers and
linguists. Each of them investigates some aspects of this type of questions. Their study on
English wh-questions have provided a great help for Vietnamese learners of English. There are
some MA thesis that pay attention to English Wh-questions. Hoa N.T.X (1996) studies English
questions in terms of S-P inversion. Meanwhile, Ms Nguyet D.T.M (1996) pays her attention to
the aspect of English questions concerning teachers' questions and politeness strategies. And
Tuyet L.T.A contrasts English wh-questions and their equivalents in Vietnamese in terms of
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. Especially there is also a Ph.D dissertation
investigating English Wh-questions. Quang V.D (2000) looks at contrative analysis of questions
in English and Vietnamese in terms of semantic and pragmatic features in his Ph.D project.
4

Generally, such researchers mentioned above studied English wh-questions from different angles
and mostly either focus on syntactic and semantic features of English Wh-questions or provide a
theoretically general picture of wh-questions between the two languages, English and
Vietnamese. However, besides such certain contributions, there still exist some gaps that need
dealing with.
There are a lot of aspects concerning English wh-questions, however, in this paper the
author would like to devote all my interest in the structural and semantic patterns of Wh-
questions in English. Then he would like to investigate the kinds of mistakes in using wh-
questions the students in Kinh Mon High School often make. Basing on the findings, the author
can make some suggestions in order to help the students to overcome these difficulties and make
questions fluently.

2. Aims of the study

The aims of the study are to:
- help raise the students' awareness of structural and semantic features of English
wh-questions.
- deepen the author's knowledge for the improvement of teaching English wh-questions to
Vietnamese learners of English.

3. Objectives of the study
The objectives of the study are to :
- examine the structural and semantic patterns of English Wh-questions.
- identify some common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese students and present some
suggested solutions.
The objectives of the study can be realized through the research questions:
1. What are the structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions?
2. What categories of mistakes do the students in Kinh Mon High school often make in using
English wh-questions?
3. What should be done to improve the students' skill in using English wh-questions?
It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to teachers and students
at Kinh Mon high school.
4. Scope of the study
5

The study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh-questions in English focuses on
English wh-questions from the perspectives of structural and semantic features. There are two
types of wh-questions will be focused: wh-information questions and wh-rhetorical questions.
The author also conducted a questionnaire to find out the mistakes made by Vietnamese students,
and from these mistakes, some possible solutions to the problems identified.

5. Methods of the study
A combination of different methods of analysis will be used in this study. Firstly, the author
applies the descriptive method to find out the structural and semantic patterns of the English wh-

questions. The study is conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources to have
full-blown information of English wh-questions. Secondly, the author designs a questionaire in
order to find out what categories of mistakes the studetnts often make when using wh-questions.
The students' errors and mistakes will be analized. All comments, remarks, recommendations and
conclusion are based on the data analysis.
The sheets of questionaire will be collected randomly so that this research will help to
gain reliable data and a close investigation into the problems that the students are encountering

6. Design of the study
This study is divided into three main parts:
- Part 1 is the Introduction of the study. It includes the rationale for choosing the topic, the
aims, the objectives, the scope, the methods and design of the study.
- Part 2 contains three chapters, in which Chapter 1 provides readers some theoretical
background on English questions in general, wh-words and their functions and the operators
and their functions in English question in brief. Moreover, some basic terms ( such as given
and new information, theme and rheme, and presuppositions ) are also discussed. Chapter 2 is
also the main part of the study, provides the detailed analysis of English wh-questions in term
of structural and semantic patterns of wh-questions in English. Chapter 3 presents a small
research of the author to find out some common mistakes made by Vietnamese students in
using English wh-questions and to suggest some possible solutions.
- Part 3 is the conclusion of the study. It also gives some implication for teaching and learning
wh-questions and some suggestions for further studies.


6

Part 2: Development
Chapter 1 : Literature review
This chapter deals with the relevant matters in wh-questions to help language leaners
understand how to use English wh-questions effectively. The relevant matters are:

- The operators and their functions
- Question words and how they are used
- Given and new information
- Theme and rheme in wh-questions
- Presuppositions

1.1. English questions.
1.1.1 Definition of questions
1.1.2. Definition of Wh-questions in English
1.1.2.1 Wh-information questions
1.1.2.2 Wh-rhetorical questions
1.2. English operators.
1.3. Question words.
1.3.1. Wh-word functions
1.3.1.1. Wh-words as interrogative pronouns.
1.3.1.2. Wh-words as determiners
1.3.1.3 Wh-word as adverbs.
1.4. Given-New Information Structure
1.4.1. Given information
1.4.2 New information
1.4.3 Information structure
1.5.1. Theme-Rheme Structure.
1.5.2. Theme and Rheme in wh-questions
1.6. Presupposition.




7

Chapter 2
The structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions
In the last chapter, the author has deeply discussed some relevant matters relating to English wh-
questions, in this chapter, the author would like to examine the structural pattern of the wh-
questions in general and then he will thoroughly illustrate the use of wh-questions in daily
discourse and finally he will discuss some types of semantic features of the wh-questions -
presuppositions.
2.1. STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS
2.1.1. Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions.
2.1.2. Non-subject wh-questions
2.1.3. Verb-oriented questions
2.1.4. Wh-questions with prepositions
2.1.5. Emphatic wh-questions.
2.1.6. Negative structures in Wh- questions
2.1.7. Response questions
2.1.7.1. Short response questions
2.1.7.2 Wh-echo questions
2.1.8. Multiple wh-element Questions.
2.1.9. Wh-rhetorical questions.
2.1.10. Formulaic wh-questions
2.2. SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS.
In the previous section, the author has discussed some types of wh-questions in terms of structure
and discourse functions. In the following part, the author would like to investigate the most
prominent feature of wh-questions- the presuppositions. Because of the focus of the study, I only
discuss its semantic patterns in terms of persuppositions.
These six types of presupposition can be brought together under the heading of potential
presupposition which represents the whole. In the discussion below, the author would like to
discover how these six types of presuppositions appear in English wh-questions.
The existential presupposition is assumed to be either in possessive constructions or in any
definite noun.

The second type of presupposition is called factive presupposition since some words are used in
the sentences to denote facts such as know, realize, regret, glad, and aware.
8

The third type of presupposition is called non-factive presuppsition, which is assumed not to be
true. Verbs like dream, imagine, and pretend are used with the presupposition that what follows
is not true.
The structural presupposition can lead the hearers to believe that the information given in each
sentence is necessarily true, rather than the presupposition of the person who asks the question.
Such structurally based presupposition may represent sublte ways of making information that the
speaker's belief appears to be what the hearer should believe.
The last type is called a counter-factual presupposition, in which what is presupposed is both
untrue and even opposite what is said or contrary to facts. In this case, such conditional structures
as the second and the third types are used.

9

Chapter 3:
Errors and mistakes likely to be made by eleventh grade
students in using wh-questions.

3.1. Introduction
This chapter will analyze the situation with the description of the subjects, the materials
used by informants and the instruments applied to collect data in order to find out the
mistakes that the participants in this study made
3.2. Setting
3.2.1 Setting of the study
3.2.2. Participants of the study
3.3 Research Instrument - Questionaire
3.3.1 Objectives of the survey questionaire.
3.3.2 The survey questionnaire
3.4. Procedures
3.5. Findings
When the students' finished sheets are collected and analyzed, the experimenter finds that there
are some very common mistakes which are divided into the following categories:
* Wrong use of wh-word: The question in which the students do not use the right question
word. Because the information needed to ask in each question has been identified earlier by
underlining the word or phrase that the students need to ask. Therefore, the question word must

be precise in each situation. For example, the students may utter such a question as " How does
her boyfriend look like?" instead of " What does her boyfriend look like?".
* Wrong use of operator: The question in which the students produce an incorrect
operator, which may be in the form of tense, number, "be" instead of "do" or positive instead of
negative. This type of mistake also includes " omitted auxiliary" in questions which require an
operator or "added operator" in sentences which do not permit one. For example, the
students may ask " What does she give you?" but the correct one must be " What did she give
you?".
* Non-inversion failure: The question in which the subject and auxiliary appear in non-
inverted order. For example, " What you don't mind?" instead of " What don't you mind doing?"
10

* Other mistake: Any mistake, including wrong pronouns ( Who called you while you
were out? instead of " Who called me while I was out?), omitting " do" in questions that are used
to ask about the verbs ( What don't you mind? instead of What don't you mind doing?" or
omitting "are there" in question 12 ( How many students in your class? but not How many
students are there in your class?)
After collecting and analyzing 100 sheets of questionaire from the students, the author find that
there are total 1149 mistakes, in which 507 wh-words are wrongly used, 441 operators are
misused, 61 questions appear in non-inverted order and 98 other mistakes. As can be seen from
table 1, the most stricking category of mistakes belongs to the use of the question words. This is
because, the question words are not given earlier before asking the students to make the
questions, therefore, many students get confused and do not know exactly in which situations
they should use which wh-word. That is the reason why, wrong wh-words account for the largest
percentage of mistakes (44%). The second most serious mistakes are those concerning the use of
operator. Although the tense and voice in each sentence are very clear, many mistakes are still
made. This one makes up of 38.4% of the total number of mistakes. The next category of
mistakes is the one that involves inversion. In this kind, 61 operators ( 5.3%) are not inverted to
the initial position of the subject. The last type is the one including several subtypes such as
omitting "do" in the question asking about the verb and omitting "are there" in the question

asking about the quantity. This last type accounts for 8.3% of the total mistakes.
3.6. The causes of Vietnamese students’ mistakes.
From the analysis, students’ difficulties in making wh-questions are concluded to be caused
by four factors. The first one is misunderstanding of wh-words, which means that students only
remember a part of the semantic features of the wh-words and they use them in every situation.
For example, the quesition word "what" can be used in many situations, not just to ask for non-
personal nouns, but they are used to ask about the person and adjectives as well. The second one
is the misuse of operators. Many of them can not remember when to use " be" and when to use
"do". In other words, they think only "be" is the only operator in situations when "do" is absent.
They also find it hard to use the correct tense of the sentence. The third factor is that the students
have difficulties in memorising the structures of the wh-questions though they are quite simple.
The last but not the least important factor is that students may find it hard to remember some
fixed idiomatic expressions, such as “What like?”, " What for?" " Why didn't ". If the
students do not have much time to practise these, they may not remember and therefore, they may
misuse them.
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3.7. Solutions to the problems.
Wh-questions have been taught in junior high school; however, teachers do not take much notice
of them. They only emphasize the grammatical rules. As for the different meanings of wh-words,
they don’t put much emphasis, not to mention the subtle differences of the wh-words which
share the same meaning, for example " which" and " what" with definite reference and indefinite
reference respectively. There are three drawbacks in teaching wh-questions in present classroom
practice.
The first one is the ignorance of wh-words and wh-questions. Since the grammatical rules of this
type of questions are very easy, teachers do not often put much emphasis on them. They only ask
students to memorize the grammatical rules. They do not emphasize the importance of using wh-
questions correctly in discussing and exchanging information. The ignorance of wh-questions in
teaching causes students to underestimate the importance of asking questions. Besides, they do
not know the precise roles of each wh-word. They only know that who is used to ask about

people and what is for non-person. Although the grammatical characteristics of wh-quesitions are
very easy, their roles and the situations in which they are used are actually complicated. Teachers
should not ignore them.
The second main problem is that teachers during their lessons are so used to asking questions
themselves that they automatically regard their students' main role as to answer what has been
asked rather than to make questions. As a result, students may have a lot of time practising
listening to and answering the questions, but have so little practice asking them. Therefore,
students have a lot of difficulties giving a question to find out some certain information or
respond to the addressers while the communication process is taking place. This cause can be
called " students' lack of practice". In order to solve the problem above, teachers should try to
encourage students to participate actively in the lessons by making full use of the situations in
each lesson for the students to discuss, to exchange their opinions freely as well as try hard to
finish all related exercises assigned by the teachers. The open and friendly interactions between
teachers and students and among students themselves can motivate the students. When the
students feel confident in sharing their opinion by making and answering questions, their
communicative competence will also improve. By that way, their skill to make questions will be
better.
Although the structures of the wh-questions are quite easy, many students still make mistakes in
forming them. This raises the need that teachers should help them to distinguish among the types
of wh-questions. The normal wh-questions come in two basic varieties, depending on where the
12

questions get the information. The first type is that the information gap is in the predicate and the
other one is in the subject. With a predicate information gap, the word order becomes object-
verb-subject (OVS). In a subject information gap question, however, the word order remains as in
a normal statement. Moreover, in a wh-question, wh-word stands at the beginning of the
sentence, the subject and operator must be inverted; and, if no operator is present, do must be
added to carry tense. For example: " What did you eat for lunch today?' Another matter is that
when the wh-word acts as a determiner ( Whose book is that?) or an adjective ( What colour is
your car?); the noun modified by the word word ( book and colour, respectively) must be fronted

along with the wh-word. Therefore, it is necessary to help students to master the structural
patterns of wh-questions.
Through the careful description, the English wh-words, their functions, the operator system, how
these two items are used to form a question and what presupposition is it in each question are
made out. Students can clearly distinguish these things and apply them in the right situations. In
addition, through the study findings, the students' difficulties in making a wh-question are
anticipated and therefore, can be prevented in advance. In other words, most problems mentioned
above can be solved.
3.8. Summary of findings
From the analysis above, we can come to the following conclusion about the categories of
mistakes that the students in Kinh Mon high school often make.
The study has come up with four main findings. Firstly, seemingly, the students do not have
much time practising using wh-words as well as making questions. Therefore, many students are
still confused how to use the correct wh-word in each situation. This is the reason why the
majority of the students make the mistakes called " wrong use of wh-words". The second
common mistake is the misuse of operator. They often use " be" instead of "do" when making
questions about the situations where "do" does not appear or they use the wrong tense.
Additionally, they may not invert the operators to the front of the subjects in non-subject wh-
questions. Moreover, they may omit "do" in verb-oriented questions especially when "do" is the
object of another verb. One more prominant mistake is the omission of "are there" in the question
asking about the quantity. On the whole, the study has proved to be beneficial as it helps the
author learn about the msitakes that the students make. Through the findings, he has assumed
some causes of the mistakes and he has suggested some ways to help the students overcome their
mistakes and improve their English competence.

13

PART 3: CONCLUSION
1. Conclusions.
As far as the theoretical background is concerned, the study has briefly presented concepts

of wh-questions both wh- information questions and wh-rhetorical questions, operators and wh-
words and their functions as well as the wh-word semantic features, and some other related
factors such as information structure, theme- rheme structure, and the most semantic feature of a
wh-question- presuppositions. This theory has been a solid framework for the analysis of the wh-
questions.
Structurally, the English wh-questions are divided into several subtypes based on their
characteristics. Basing on the functions of the wh-words, we have wh-questions for subjects, wh-
questions for non-subjects and wh-questions for the main verb. Wh-questions are also devided
basing on their discourse functions such as reply questions, formulaic questions and rhetorical
questions.
Semantically, the author describes six types of presupposition of the wh-questions based on Yule
(1983) : the existential, the factive, the non-factive, the lexical, the structural and the
counterfactual.
By analysing the sheets of questionaire collected from one hundred students in Kinh Mon high
school some interesting findings have been made. It is discovered that there are four most striking
types of mistakes that the students often make. They are wrong use of wh-word, wrong use of
operator, non-inversion failure and the omissions of "do" in questions about main verbs and the
omission of "are there". From the result of the survey, the author can assume the causes of the
mistakes and suggest some ways to help the students to overcome the difficulties in making wh-
questions.
2. Implications of the study for teaching English wh-questions.
Most students find it hard to make a correct wh-question and therefore, they do not participate
actively in the discussion activities during a speaking lesson and can not communicate freely and
confidently. The findings are very important for English teachers. If English teachers can make
out the problems, they can figure out some solutions to help their students. Therefore, the
purposes of this study are to find out: (1) what types of wh-questions are the most difficult to the
students, (2) whether students use the operator system correctly, (3) what other difficulties
students have in making a wh-question, (4) why they use these wh-words and operators wrongly.
To find out students’ difficulties, the first step is to understand the usages and meanings of
English wh-words and wh-question formation and semantic features. After understanding all

14

these matters, teachers should realize the difficulties in students’ learning and using wh-
questions. The main difficulty lies not only in their forms but in the meaning aspect as well. In
addition, students are also confused with the subtle differences among the functions of wh-words
in each situation. One of the suggestions is that wh-words should be presented according to the
functions. The other is about ways which help students to realize the functions and the use of
English operators in certain setting by regarding to the context of utterance. First, the tenses of
the sentences and their auxiliaries should be clearly defined. Then show the students how and
when to use these auxiliaries in questions. Besides, teachers also remind the students that when
asking about the verbs of the sentence, "do" must be used to replace that verb. Teachers should
create some real world situations to make them acquainted with the different usages of wh-words
and wh-questions. The last thing to be taken into consideration is that students should be
encouraged to freely participate in the discussion activities. By that way, students' abilities to ask
questions will be improved.
3. Limitations of the study.
This paper is to describe the structural and semantic features of English wh-questions, and
to identify the errors and mistakes likely to be made by students. The author has subjectively
drawn out some findings about the structures and semantics that are used in English wh-
questions. However, with limited amount of time spent on the research and limited number of
participants, the results of the categories of errors and mistakes are confined to the eleventh
graders in Kinh Mon High School only. The author has put a lot of efforts on this study and also
got much help from teachers, friends and family. Even though, it is desired that this study may be
of some help to those who are interested in the topic, it will be a great source of happiness for the
writer if readers contribute for the thesis improvement. Your reading, judgment, suggestions will
be highly appreciated with gratefulness. However, for such a large topic as this, it requires much
more efforts, time and knowledge to cover, therefore, the study can not avoid imperfection and
limitation.
4. Suggestions for further research.
On the basis of this study, the following further research may be feasible.

- wh-questions viewed from the perspective of pragmatics



47
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