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I ran into this sentence

-What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?

which appeared as rubric in Cambridge Vocabulary For Advanced (Unit 1, p12), written by Haines Simon.

I was wondering if someone can clarify why in this particular phrase "What do you think" is followed by a direct question rather than an indirect question such as "What do you think the advantages and disadvantages of city life are?" .

Allegedly, the grammatical structure should be "Wh- direct question + indirect question ?" as in the case of "What do you think these objects are?" or "What do you think their jobs are?".

Thanks in advance for your help.

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  • "What are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?"
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 13:08
  • We all slip up, even an English language text book writer. It might do with the length of the subject, so the speaker uses the more familiar pattern for questions, i.e. inverting the auxiliary (are) with the subject (the advantages and disadvantages of city life).
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 13:19
  • We're gonna get these allegators. // << What, do you think, are these objects? >> probably needs the commas to offset the almost speech-tag analogue, modal / conversational lubricant parenthetical pragmatic marker do you think here (the matrix sentence being the question << What are these objects? >> The commas become less necessary and in fact clunky with the weightier are the advantages and disadvantages of city life? (but are still an option, if dramatic pauses are preferred).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 15:08
  • I think @Mari-Lou has it right here. Placing are after a long subject contravenes the principle of "end-weight". It's even more apparent if the subject is extended: What do you think the advantages and disadvantages of city life in these difficult times are? In fact, I would not regard the original sentence as an error.
    – Shoe
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 15:53
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    Here, 'do you think' has a parenthetical meaning. It should have two commas like "What, do you think, are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?"
    – Ram Pillai
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 16:47

2 Answers 2

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What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?

This is a perfectly grammatical and colloquial sentence. The analysis given in the question

"What do you think is followed by a direct question"

is wrong: are the advantages and disadvantages of city life is not a direct question. It's not a question at all; it's not even a complete clause -- no subject. It's just a verb phrase. In fact, it's the verb phrase in the question

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?

which is what is being asked here. The do you think part is non-informational; how else would anybody answer except what they think?

The actual syntax is a result of the Wh-Question Formation rule, which can yank a Wh-word from almost anywhere in a sentence and stick it at the front of a question, after inverting the subject and first auxiliary of the question, like a Yes/No question.

This happens in stages, starting with the original non-question structure, with an unspecified argument that'll become the Wh-word. Most of these intermediate structures are ungrammatical (they're not finished) but I'll include them without question marks to illustrate the steps in the derivation. Here's the original structure that will result in the question:

  • You think Unspec are the advantages and disadvantages of city life

To make a Wh-question out of this, you start by replacing the Unspec with the appropriate Wh-word:

  • You think what are the advantages and disadvantages of city life

Then make a Yes/No question by inverting subject (you) and first auxiliary.

But, since You think has no auxiliary, Do-Support applies, and a new shiny auxiliary comes out of the slot and takes the tense morpheme, which is Zero in all cases so there's no change except adding do as an auxiliary:

  • You do think what are the advantages and disadvantages of city life

and then inverting it with you:

  • Do you think what are the advantages and disadvantages of city life

We're almost there now; the last step in Wh-Question Formation is to move the Wh-word what to the front, from wherever it was in the original:

  • What do you think ___ are the the advantages and disadvantages of city life?

The hole in the sentence where the what came from is of course not audible. But it does mark a clause boundary; it's just that the subject of the clause has been moved up and out, giving the impression that what do you think is a constituent (it isn't, in this sentence) and that are the advantages ... is a question (as noted, it isn't).

Language is not a matter of words on a string like beads; there are constructions and they can change, by rule.

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    "Where do you think the nearest poll site is?" OR should I say "Where do you think is the nearest poll site?"
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 17:12
  • They are both grammatical; just questions of two versions of a symmetric clause with an indefinite locative: The nearest poll site is Indef Loc versus Indef Loc is the nearest poll site. Each one produces a different output when run through the Wh-Question Formation rule.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 17:20
  • Your movement analysis starts with your original structure: You think <Unspec> are the advantages and disadvantages of city life, where you somehow assume that <Unspec> is the subject of the content clause. What is that assumption based on? What's stopping you to assume that the subject of the content clause is the advantages and disadvantages of city life? Would your original structure be different if you were to analyze the movement of What do you think they are??
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 2:21
  • @JohnLawler Please have a look at the above comment of mine. Thanks.
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 23:54
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I just heard back from Editorial department in Cambridge University Press and this is what they respond:

"Sometimes in indirect questions where the subject is a very long phrase, we can reverse the order of the subject (the advantages and disadvantages of city life) and the verb (are) in order to make the question less unwieldy and more balanced."

In all honesty, I´m quite satisfied with the explanation.

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  • I'm not sure that I'd agree that 'the advantages and disadvantages of city life' is long enough to qualify; I'd read this sentence with pauses, requiring commas: 'What, do you think, are the advantages and disadvantages of city life?' The 'do you think' hardly adds any semantic content; it's rather a conversational filler, making the question appear less stark (ie having a pragmatic role). 'What, do you think, are these?' works similarly, but certainly wouldn't without the commas.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 15:08
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    Certainly, you`ve made your point, the actual fact is the original question was written without any comma, though. Cheers!
    – Ana Perez
    Commented Oct 10, 2020 at 6:54

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