Question Word Clauses

Pernah lihat klausa berbentuk pertanyaan? Ya, klausa tersebut dinamakan Question-word clauses. Dalam teori grammar lainnya, klause ini termasuk dalam noun clauses karena fungsinya bisa menjadi subject, object, dan subjective complement.

Jika pada kalimat pertanyaan biasa susunan auxiliary harus berada sebelum subject, dalam question-word clauses, tidak ada penambahan auxiliary sama sekali.

Contoh :

Kalimat pertanyaan umum -- Why do you love me?

Question-word clauses -- I ask you why you love me.

Secara umum, question-word clauses berfungsi sebagai object seperti keterangan Swan (2005: 487), "Clauses beginning with question words can refer both to questions and to the answers to questions. They often act as the object of verbs--for example, when questions and their answers are reported."

Contoh

• I asked who wanted to come 
• She wondered why he wasn't wearing a coat 
• We need to decide where Ann's going to sleep 
• He told me when he was arriving, but I've forgotten
• She explained what the problem was

Namun, secara lebih luas question-word clauses bisa dijadikan sebagai subject, complement dan adverbial seperti keterangan Swan yang menjelaskan, "Question-word clauses can act not only as objects, but also as subjects, complements or adverbials. This structure is often rather informal (especially with how clauses)"

Contoh

• Who you invite is your business -----> sebagai subject
• Where we stay doesn't matter -----> sebagai subject
• I'm surprised at how fast she can run ----> sebagai object of prepositon
• You can eat it how you like (very informal) ----> sebagai adverb
• A hot bath is what I need ----> sebagai subjective complement
• This is how much I've done ----> sebagai subjective complement

Ketika question-word clauses memberikan penjelasan pada noun (kata benda), klausa ini biasanya disebut adjective clauses atau juga dikenal dengan nama relative clauses. Hal ini seperti diungkapkan Swan, "Question-word clauses can give more information about nouns. In this case they are called 'relative clauses'"

• That's the man who threw stones at your dog
• The place where Mary works has just had a fire

Referensi :

Swan, Michael. 2005. Practical English Usage: 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press.