Word order in russian questions

Russian sentence structure and word order are flexible. It means that you can put words in different places in the sentence and the meaning will stay pretty much the same.

For example, in English, we say: SHE IS A TEACHER. If we try IS TEACHER A SHE or anything else, the meaning will change.

In Russian, we can do this, but… it’s not random! It depends on the context and emotions of the speaker.

For example,
Я БЫЛА НА РАБОТЕ – I was at work (normal sentence)
НА РАБОТЕ Я БЫЛА!!! – I was at work (but when somebody asked you 100 times already :D)
БЫЛА Я КАК-ТО НА РАБОТЕ… – I was at work once… (and then follows some story)

You see? It’s not that random at all!

So please just stay with the basic word order: Subject + Verb + Object

Examples (don’t worry about the endings, we’ll learn them later, now only the word order is important):
Он работает сегодня – He is working today;
Мама читает газету – Mom is reading a newspaper;
Дарья гуляет в парке – Daria is walking in the park.

QUESTIONS IN RUSSIAN

So-called YES/NO questions are formed just with intonation (watch the video – 15:30). You don’t have to change the word order to make a question.

In English: She is a teacher. – Is she a teacher?
In Russian: Она учитель. – Она учитель?

In English: This is a girl. – Is this a girl?
In Russian: Это девушка. – Это девушка?

In English: He is sick. – Is he sick?
In Russian: Он болеет. – Он болеет?

Also, you can use the question words to make questions. Here are some of them:
Кто? – Who?
Что? – What?
Где? – Where?
Когда? – When?
Почему? Зачем? – Why?

Read the examples below.

Original Post by: [deactivated user]: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/13955228 | Archived original page: https://archive.ph/B5wgf

[deactivated user]:

There’re lots of questions about the word order, so I’ve thought I’ll write a guide about it.

This guide is work-in-progress, I’ll edit it as more questions are asked, and as mistakes are found.

1. Common misconceptions

You might have heard that the Russian has a ‘free word order’. However, this is a linguistic term that is often misunderstood. ‘Free word order’ means that subject, object and verb are not arranged in a certain order.

It does not mean that you can put words in any order. It just means that grammatic role (subject/object/verb) doesn’t affect the word order.

2. Neutral/objective and inverted/emphatic/subjective word order

In Russian, sentences have a neutral/objective word order. It is the default word order that doesn’t add any additional information. Duolingo usually accepts only sentences with the neutral word order.

You can break the neutral word order by moving words around. By doing this, you create an inverted/emphatic/subjective word order. This word order is used for emotional emphasis. With emphatic word order, you must mark the new information/focus with intonation (see more about it later). Usually, when you swap the place of two words, one of these words gets the emphasis (the intonation shows which one).

Emphatic word order is not usually accepted on Duolingo. For you as for learners, it’s better to learn the neutral word order first. It’s important to learn the rules before learning the ways to break them.

3. Fixed position of certain words

Some words have a fixed position in the sentence.

Adjectives usually precede the noun they modify: большо́й дом ‘big house’, кра́сный цвето́к ‘red flower’.

Other noun modifiers usually follow the noun: кни́га сестры́ ‘sister’s book’, статья́ в журна́ле ‘an article in the magazine’.

Objects usually follow the verb: я ви́жу соба́ку ‘I see a dog’, я понима́ю грамма́тику ‘I understand the grammar’.

4. Word order can show new information

All sentences have some new information, and some known information. Known information is called topic in some analyses, and theme in others. New information is called comment, rheme or focus.

Rheme/comment is something you want to tell. For example, in the sentence ‘My sister is an architect’, it’s assumed that you know I have a sister, and new information is her occupation. When I say, ‘My sister is the architect’, you know that there’s some architect mentioned before, and new information is that this architect is actually my sister.

So, in Russian we place new information towards the end of the sentence:

• Моя сестра — архитектор. ‘My sister is an architect.’
• Архитектор — моя сестра́. ‘My sister is the architect.’

In English, we use the article ‘a’ to show that ‘architect’ is a new piece of infomation, someone not introduced before. In Russian, we use the word order.

Russian usually places topic/theme (known information) at the beginning of the sentence, and comment/focus/rheme (new information) at the end.

The first part of the sentence is something known. It’s a pivotal point that connects the sentence to listener’s knowledge. And the end of the sentence is new information.

Compare:

• На столе́ мои́ кни́ги. ‘My books are on the table.’ ‘What is on the table is my books.’ (This sentence tells us something about the table: the fact that my books are there. Table is a known information, books is new information.)
• Мои́ кни́ги на столе́. ‘My books are on the table.’ ‘The place where my books are is the table.’ (This sentence tells us something about my books: the fact that they are on the table.)
• В па́рке собрали́сь все. ‘Everyone gathered in the park.’ It’s a sentence about what is going on in the park. New information: that everyone’s there. Park is something we know about. We can use this sentence if we talked about the park before.
• Все собрали́сь в па́рке. ‘Everyone gathered in the park.’ It’s a sentence about ‘everyone’, about the group of people. The new information is: that this group is in the park. We can use this sentence if we talked about ‘everyone’ before.
• Возле окна́ стои́т стол. ‘There is a table standing near the window.’ It’s a sentence about the place near the window. New information is: there’s a table standing there.
• Стол стои́т во́зле окна́. ‘The table is standing near the window.’ It’s a sentence about the table. New information is: it’s near the window.
  

  5. Word order in questions

Basically, the word order is the same as in the answer to the question. Imagine a possible answer and use the same word order:

If answer is «Моя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор» ‘My sister is an architect’, then the question is «Моя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор» ‘Is my sister is architect?’:

— Моя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор? ‘Is my sister an architect.’
— Твоя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор. ‘Your sister is an architect.’

5.1. Word order with question words

However, there’s an exception: question words normally come at the beginning of the sentence. So, if «кто?» ‘who?’ replaced «архите́ктор» in the question, it becomes «Кто моя́ сестра́?» ‘Who/what is my sister?’ (not «Моя́ сестра́ кто́?»):

— Кто моя́ сестра́? ‘What’s my sister?’
— Твоя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор. ‘Your sister is an architect.’

This sometimes means you can break other rules about the word order. For example, «како́й» ‘what’ works like an adjective, but it is not placed before the noun. It’s placed at the beginning:

— Како́й моя сестра́ архите́ктор? ‘What architect is my sister?’
— Твоя сестра́ — изве́стный архите́ктор. ‘Your sister is a famous architect.’

5.2. Word order with «ли»

There’s another way to form generic questions: you put the rheme/focus/comment at the beginning of the sentence, add «ли», and leave all the other words as they are in the answer. This way, word + ли works like a question word:

— Архите́ктор ли моя́ сестра́? ‘Is my sister an architect?’
— Твоя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор. ‘Your sister is an architect.’

«Архите́ктор ли моя́ сестра́?» and «Моя́ сестра́ — архите́ктор?» mean the same thing.

When the new information is not one word, but several, then you place all the words in the beginning of the sentence, but add «ли» after the first one. Here’s an example (here, the new information that is the rheme of the question is «известный архитектор»):

— Изве́стный ли архите́ктор моя́ сестра́? ‘Is my sister a famous architect?’
— Твоя́ сестра́ — изве́стный архите́ктор. ‘Your sister is a famous architect.’

1) The neutral and the most common word order is «С кем я пошёл?«.

2) «Я пошёл с кем?» most likely will be used as rhetorical question, when the speaker doesn’t really expect an answer from other people, but answers the question himself. «С кем» should be emphasized with intonation. Examples:

1.

Я пошёл с кем? С тобой, конечно!

Whom did I go with? With you, of course!

2.

Вектор a направлен куда? Правильно, перпендикулярно плоскости XY.

Where is the vector a directed? That’s right, perpendicular to the plane XY.

3) Пошёл я с кем? can be used to emphasize «пошёл», typically when it is opposed to some other action. For example:

Я помню, что разговаривал с несколькими людьми, а пошёл я с кем?

I remember that I talked to several people, but whom did I go with?

4) «Я с кем пошёл?» is similar to variant 2, it also emphasizes «с кем».

Russian grammar —> Word order in Russian

In English, the word order plays an important role because it shows the relationships between parts in the sentence (subject, object, etc.). For example, if we say «Cats eat mice», we clearly understand that «cats» is here the subject of the action «eat» and the object of this action is «mice». If we switch the position of nouns «cats» and «mice», we get «Mice eat cats», a sentence with a different meaning. So, in English sentence the grammatical sense depends on word order.

However, Russian word order is very flexible. The relationships between parts of the Russian sentence are shown by the endings of words. Depending on the grammatical sense and role in the sentence, Russian words have different endings.
Look at the following example:

So, because of words endings, the parts of the Russian sentence can go in almost any order without causing any misunderstanding on the part of the listener.

If you want to know more about word endings and their grammatical role in Russian, we recommend you to see the page Cases in Russian on our website.

For the beginner in Russian there is nothing very important to remember about word order – other than the fact that it is very flexible. For example, while translating a Russian sentence, you can use the word order of the English sentence and native speakers will always understand you.

At the same time, Russian word order has its own peculiarities. One of these peculiarities is that in written Russian new information (or emphasized information) comes at the end of the sentence. For example, look at the sentence:

In a conversation, the word order is more flexible since intonation and stress may be used to show the emphasized information in a sentence.

There is a general idea that most questions in the world are asked by children, as far as while developing they want to discover a lot and understand the way things work. However, not only children often use questions. All people, who enter into a dialogue, are forced to go to questions anyhow.

If we want to study out some information, to ask someone’s name, age, what person likes and what someone does, we have to use questions. Communication is just impossible without questions and answers.

Question-answer structure is overwhelmingly important and necessary element of human’s communication and thinking as well. Nevertheless, not only somebody can be asked questions, but even yourself.

Questions fulfil two major functions: cognitive and communicative.

Question mostly comprises a request or demanding certain information.

It is interesting that a question has rather strong activating effect on a listener. It renews a speech, drives audience’s attention, provoking its interest, exciting initiative, aspiration to take an active part in collective thinking. Leading role in the argument, as well as any other kind of speech act, belongs to question in particular.

According to the definition, a question is a saying, verity of which is not determined or not specified to the end. Practically, any question is based on certain knowledge. Stating one’s question, a person thereby wants to clarify information that is already partially known. For example, «Кто является владельцем сети гипермаркетов Ашан?» /Who is the owner of Auchan hypermarket network?/. A person tries to broaden already avaliable partial information by this question. One knows about existense of the network of these hypermarkets, and wants to find out by whom it is owned.

Types of Interrogative Sentences

Interrogative question makes an interlocutor answer speaker’s question. There are the following types of interrogative questions: 

— Proper interrogative sentence comprises a question, supposing obligatory answer: Вы завершили ваш проект? /Did you finish your project?/ Она уже пришла? /Has she already come?/

— Interrogative-affirmative sentence comprises information, which needs to be confirmed: Так вы едете с нами? /So, are you coming with us?/ Это уже решено? /Is it decided already?/ Ну, поехали? /Well, are we going?/

— Interrogative-negative sentence already comprises the negation of what is being asked: Что же вам тут может нравиться? /What can you like about this?/ Кажется, это не особо эстетично? /It seems to be less than aesthetic, isn’t it?/ И что же вы можете нам поведать? /So, what can you tell us?/

— Interrogative-affirmative and interrogative-negative sentences can be united banded in the category of interrogative-declarative sentences. 

— Interrogative-imperative sentence comprises drinking to act, expressed in a question itself: Итак, может быть, продолжим нашу тренировку? /So, maybe we’ll continue our training?/ Займёмся сначала растяжкой? /Let’s do stretching out at first?/ Ну, начнем? /Well, let’s start?/

— Interrogative-rhetorical sentence comprises a statement or negation and doesn’t need any answer, since an answer is comprised in a question itself: Мечты… Какая польза от напрасных мечтаний? /Dreams… What’s the point of vain dreaming?/

So How Are Questions Formed in Russian?

Questions can be formed in different ways in Russian: with the help of intonation, by adding interrogative words (кто? /who?/, что? /what?/, где? /where?/, зачем /what for?/, почему? /why?/, как? /how?/, какой? /which?/), with the help of particle «ли» /whether/ (Знаете ли?, Правда ли?).

You can give complete or short answers to the questions. For example: «В сколько ты вернулся из кинотеатра?» /When did you come back from the cinema?/ — «Я вернулся из кинотеатра в 8» /I came back from the cinema at 8 p.m./ (complete answer), «в 8» /at 8 p.m./ (short answer). You can answer some questions, formed with the help of interrogative intonation in particular (Ты знаешь, что твой брат уже приехал из Парижа? /Do you know that your brother has already come back from Paris?/), and so-called «ли-вопросы» (Правда ли, что хлеб подорожал? /Is it true bread got more expensive?/), with monosemantic words «да» /yes/ or «нет» /no/. However, you can also answer such questions another way. For instanse, «нет, я этого не знал» /no, I didn’t know that/, «да, я об этом знаю» /yes, I know that/.

There are simple and complex questions in Russian. Everything concerning simple questions is rather clear. They consist of one simple sentence (Как тебя зовут?) /What is your name?/. Complex question represents the formation of simple questions, integrated with the help of conjunctions and, or, whether.., either… or etc. Complex question can consist of some matrixes and one unknown variable (Каковы финансовые и материальные активы вашего холдинга и какие у нас шансы на успех? /What are the financial and fixed assets of your holding and what chances of success do we have?/).

We can distinguish open questions and closed-end questions among the simple ones. The meaning of open questions is multivalued, that’s why answers to such questions aren’t stricktly bounded and can be of free format. The following question can be an example: «Каковы перспективы развития финансовой системы на Уругвае?» /What are the perspectives of financial system development in Uruguay?/. The answer to this question can be given in a form of report and give consideration to different aspects of this issue. Closed-end question is decisive and stated, that’s why the answer should be reasoned by rigid boundaries: definite character and exact proportionment of requested information. «Кто построил это здание?» /Who built this building?/.