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I couldn't explain it in the title, my apologies. Now the sentence, in indirect-speech:
Anne asked me who my favourite actor was
I know this sentence is correct, but WHY isn't it the following?
Anne asked me who was my favourite actor
What is the grammatical explanation to the change in the verb's position? I imagined it would be easy to find an answer online, but after quite some time spent searching it, I couldn't find an answer. I hope you can help me here.
Ask is a transitive verb: it takes a Direct Object (DO), in its simplest form a noun phrase:
Anne asked me [DO a question].
If we want to represent Anne's exact words, we use the question she actually asked, followed by a question mark and enclosed in quotes, in that DO position:
Anne asked me "Who is your favorite actor?"
The quotes mark this as a distinct constituent.
But in indirect speech, when we want to convey the substance of her question, we use a kind of relative clause (a free or fused relative clause) which can act as a nominal phrase in the DO position. This kind of clause starts with an ordinary declarative clause ... replaces the term asked for with an interrogative/relative term ... and moves that term to the front of the clause:
your favorite actor was _______
your favorite actor was who
v<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<^
who your favorite actor was
Note that the same clause can represent my answer—a situation where it cannot represent a question:
I told her who my favorite actor was.
In fact this sort of clause can act like a nominal phrase in almost any context—for example, as the object of a preposition:
She was curious about who my favorite actor was.
It can act as the Subject of a sentence:
Who my favorite actor was was the subject of her inquiry.
And in this sentence, a copulation, free relative clauses act as both Subject and Predicate Complement:
Who my favorite actor was was what she wanted to know.
Affirmative: that man was
Negative: that man wasn't
Interrogative: Was that man...?
Affirmative statement: Tell me who that man was.
Interrogative: (only 1 interrogative form at the beginning) Can you tell me who that man was?
Interrogative: Who was that man?
Affirmative: Anne asked me who my favourite actor was. (There's no question mark.)
Question words like who/what are not in the interrogative form in an affirmative statement, like yours. 'you are' is affirmative. 'Are you...?' would be interrogative. It's only used at the beginning: Are you trying to say he's wrong? But not in the middle : Can you tell me what you are trying to say? And not in a statement: I know what you are trying to say.
Hope this helps.
