sentence patterns - Why is there no form of "do" in questions of the type "who knows?"


I'm wondering whether expressions like the ones below are correct or not. I've seen them several times but they don't seem to follow the typical grammatical structure.




  • Who comes? (instead of who do come?)

  • Who knows?

  • What happened? (instead of what did happen?)



So why are they constructed in this way? Are there many other expressions of this kind?



Answer



Yes, those sentences are correct. You are wondering why these questions do not have do + infinitive, like most questions. I won't bore you with basic grammar lessons. The reason is that the interrogative pronoun is the subject of the sentence. Whenever that is the case, a question takes the same form as a statement (apart from the addition of the interrogative pronoun itself). The normal subject–verb inversion doesn't happen either, because interrogative pronouns usually need to be in first position.



What do you do? [you = subject]


Who knows the answer? [who = subject]



Note that you could add a form of do if you want to put extra emphasis on the sentence (which is normally not necessary).



A: Did you steal her car?


B: No, man! She's crazy.


A: Then who did steal her car? She is freaking out! [not required; emphasizes question; marks contrast with previous negative answer]



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