grammaticality - Position of verb for object clause
Is the general word order of this sentence correct?
We investigate how strong the effect of X on Y is.
Or, as an alternative,
We investigate how strong the effect of X is on Y.
In a preprint for a scientific publication I came across the formulation:
We investigate how strong is the effect of XZY.
and now I'm all confused.
Answer
The Object clause how strong ..., since it starts with a Wh-word, is an Embedded Question Object Complement clause. Embedded Wh-Questions differ from real Wh-Questions in that they don't undergo Subject-Auxiliary Inversion.
So that's what lets out the third example, which has undergone Subject-Auxiliary Inversion.
Both of the first two examples are fine, because they both come from different potential placements of the prepositional phrase on Y. Being a locative adverbial, it can be inserted into any available niche in the sentence, including
- The effect of X is Z on Y.
- The effect of X on Y is Z.
Both of these, if "Z" is a real variable, coreferential with What, produce
- What is the effect of X on Y?
as a non-embedded Wh-Question. However, as an Embedded question, either order is available, since the auxiliary verb is doesn't get inverted with the subject Noun Phrase the effect.
Summary:
- We investigate how strong the effect of X on Y is -- OK.
- We investigate how strong the effect on Y of X is -- OK.
- We investigate how strong is the effect of X .. -- Not OK.
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