What do you think IS his name?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

(1) What do you think his name IS?

(2) What do you think IS his name?

Teachers tell us that No. 1 is the correct indirect question.

Is there a situation in which No. 2 is not only “correct” but also

better?

Thanks,

James

2

Hello James

In my opinion both are correct, but I’d choose your first sentence. Perhaps I could give you a situation in a dialogue:

A: Don’t you find the new colleague rather mysterious? He hasn’t even introduced himself to us.
B: Yes, I agree, what do you think is his name, because the headmaster hasn’t introduced him to us either?

I also must disagree with your teachers who say that your first sentence is an indirect question. It’s a direct question as well as your second one. I’ll give you an example of what your second question could look like in indirect speech:

‘They wanted to know what his name was.’

‘They wanted to know what was his name.’ is not correct in indirect speech.

I hope I’ve been able to help you! But please don’t blame me if I’m wrong.

Alexandro.

3

Thank you very much for your reply.

James

4

Hi James,
As a non-native, I would choose 2) as the one fronting the idea of REAL eg,“He was known as A., B., C. at different times, in different countries. But what do you think IS his name?” Looking forward to natives’ views.
Regards.

5

Hi James,

As an independent, short question, sentence 1 would be the ideal word order, and also typical. However, version 2 may end up being used occasionally.

It seems to me that the most likely sort of situation for version 2 would be when ‘do you think’ seems to be set off from the rest of the sentence. In other words, if ‘do you think’ almost seems to be parenthetical (which would likely be achieved by slight pauses before and after ‘do you think’ and/or far less stress on those words), then that might be a good situation for the word order in sentence 2:

  • [size=117]What, [/size][size=92]do you think[/size], [size=117]is his name? [/size]

You might say that would be somewhat akin to saying the following, in which a speaker might add ‘do you think’ to a direct question as an afterthought:

  • What’s his name … do you think?
    [color=white]
    .
    The sentence in the following quote only strikes me as unnatural. :frowning:

[color=darkblue]______________________________________________________________________________
[size=75]“I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.” ~ Benjamin Franklin[/size]

6

Hi ESL-Expert,

I believe what you say ofcourse, but why does the sentence ,you quoted, strikes you as unnatural?

Thanks
Alex

7

Eugene, thank you for your answer. If you study your answer and ESL Expert’s answer, you will see that you – although not a native speaker --come pretty close to what ESL Expert said. (Believe me, Eugene, ESL Expert is really an expert in grammar!!!)

Thank you as usual, ESL Expert. I was thinking of a similar situation, but I lacked the self-confidence to believe that I might be right.
Your explanation was spot-on. (I learned “spot-on” from a British magazine. I think it means “right on the mark.” It’s fun to use British slang!)

8

For what it’s worth, I agree with ESL_expert.
I would expect that sentence to be, "What do you think his name is?’ unless it were spoken under the parenthetical conditions that Esl_Expert has indicated.