1.9 Questions and commands

German main clauses have a different structure to that of English:

The FINITEVERB is always the second element. Only one element – the TOPIC – comes before the finite verb. other parts of the verb – INFINITIVE, PASTPARTICIPLE, SEPARABLEPREFIX – are placed at the end of the clause.

Word order is explained in chapter 9, and you should familiarize yourself in particular with the word order table at the end of that chapter.

The only difference between the structure of questions and commands on the one hand and of main clause statements on the other is that in the former the finite verb is in first position. Any other parts of the verb are at the end of the clause, and the two parts of the verb enclose all the other elements in the clause:

The following sentences illustrate this:

In some types of question (those which can’t be answered by ja/nein), the verb is not in first position, but is preceded by an INTERROGATIVE word or phrase (typically beginning with w-):

verb1 central section verb2

verb1 central section verb2

Arbeitet er an seinem Projekt? Willst du ins Kino

Surfen Sie im Internet! gehen?

Wer hat das City-Cup-Finale gewonnen? Who won the City Cup Final? Mit wem bist du zum Skifahren gefahren? Who did you go skiing with?/With whom… Welches Rad willst du? Which bike do you want? In welcher Kneipe hast du sie getroffen? Which bar did you meet her in? Warum studierst du Japanisch? Why are you studying Japanese? Wie lange wollt ihr Karten spielen? How long do you want to play cards?

NB Question words belong to different word classes: pronouns (e.g. wer, see 3.9), adjectives (e.g. welcher, see 3.4), adverbs (e.g. warum, see 4.15). The pronouns and adjectives change their form, while adverbs remain unchanged.