Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

dido4 · Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 277

1.Tell me what's going on here.

2.Tell me what going on is here.
3.Tell me what goning is on here.
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Q1:Which one is right?

Q2:I know that indirect questions have to change the sentence order into declarative sentence. So I am wondering that do we have to change the sentence above. Why or why not?

Thank you

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

"Tell me what's going on here." is correct. You don't have to change any order, because the question is about the subject. A statement would be, "Something is going on here." That is statement order. The "What" question has the same order, because it is replacing the subject. You would say, "What is going on here?" Therefore, you can say, "Tell me what's going on here." Please ask again if you don't understand the explanation.