Thread: Particle "же"

Why you wouldn't have written it before, on the appointment?

Why you didn't write it before, at the appointment?

Both these questions have inverted word order. "you wouldn't" and "you didn't" should be "wouldn't you" and "didn't you" in these questions as written. =>

"Why wouldn't you have written it before, at the appointment?

Why didn't you write it before, at the appointment?"

The inverted word order in "Why you didn't write it before, on the appointment?" is almost always used with an additional phrase:

Why you didn't (do something or other), I don't know.

There are several such added phrases 'is a mystery to me' or 'is neither here nor there' and some other types of such things.

Asking the question requires the word order "why didn't you...?"

Inverting the word order has the effect of changing the function of the phrase. It changes to a statement that has some more content at the end usually. And no question mark is used in that construction.


"Why is the elevator out of service today?"
"Why the elevator is out of service today is beyond me!"

Originally Posted by Seraph

Both these questions have inverted word order. "you wouldn't" and "you didn't" should be "wouldn't you" and "didn't you" in these questions as written. =>

"Why wouldn't you have written it before, at the appointment?

Thank you
I did write it that way first time but it seemed so weird to me that I formed it as of above
I should have stuck to the grammar no matter how weird it seemed