[삭제됨]
In the phrase "How many people live there?", why we don't use "do"?
I learned that in interrogative phrases without "to be", we must use "do" or "does" or "did". Why in the question above, where the verb is "to live", we don't use "do"?
2014년 9월 4일 오전 3:34
답변 · 5
4
This is called a subject question. A subject question asks about the subject of the sentence. In subject questions where we want to ask about the subject, we do not use auxiliary verbs.
Who wants to go the cinema? is another example of a subject question.
2014년 9월 4일
1
"How many people do live there" is technically correct, but old-fashioned. You could still use it today to stress that you want to know exactly how many people live there.
For example:
If you said "I think 5 people live there" and someone said, "No, that's wrong"
You could ask "Well, how many people DO live there?" By stressing the 'do', you are implying that you want to know an exact number.
2014년 9월 4일
It's a good question, Vitor, and one that confuses a lot of language learners. It even puzzles some native speakers when they are forced to think about it. Iris has given you the perfect answer below.
2014년 9월 4일
아직도 답을 찾지 못하셨나요?
질문을 남겨보세요. 원어민이 도움을 줄 수 있을 거예요!
