Question
Who ___________ was coming to see us this evening?
Official answer and solution
- Official answer
- B
- From
- Official GATE 2014 answer key
Solution
Apply grammatical rules for embedded questions containing parenthetical reporting clauses.
- The main interrogative clause asks about the subject of 'was coming': 'Who ... was coming to see us this evening?'
- To insert a reporting clause ('you said') into an interrogative wh-question:
- Auxiliary inversion ('did you say') is required: 'Who did you say was coming...?'.
- Including the complementizer 'that' ('did you say that') is ungrammatical when the interrogative pronoun 'who' is the extracted subject of the embedded clause (the that-trace effect).
- 'you said' lacks the necessary subject-auxiliary inversion for a direct question.
Hence, the correct option is 'did you say' (option B).
Final answer
B
Common trap
Adding 'that' (option C), violating the standard English that-trace constraint in subject extractions.
The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.
Source
- Paper
- GATE 2014 Computer Science and Information Technology (CS) Session 2
- Question
- 2 of 65, printed as GA Q.2
- Section
- General Aptitude
Report an error in this question
GATE questions are the work of the organising institutes. This site is independent and is not affiliated with them.