italki – Which one is correct? Do you know what time it is? Do you know what time is it? Which one is correct
I mean no disrespect at all, Wozitoya, but I don’t want there to be confusion over this. You have stated that “Do you know what time is it?” is correct; but it simply isn’t correct, for the reasons I stated above.
The CLAUSE to which “it is” belongs (“what time it is”) is not a question; it is a relative clause that is PART of the question “Do you know [X]?” The question portion (“do you know?”) has been reworded:
“You do know.” (statement)
“Do you know?” (question)
The word order of the relative clause (“what time it is”) is not reversed in this case.
Let’s use another example. Imagine that I am asking this question:
“Do you know how lucky you are?”
I don’t think anyone would say we should word this as “Do you know how lucky are you?” Yet, it involves the same components as the question “Do you know what time it is?”
In a relative clause, the relative pronoun can be substituted with the word “that” when reworded as a stand-alone statement:
“what time it is” . . . “It is [that] time.”
“how lucky you are” . . . “You are [that] lucky.”
The word order should remain the same in the relative clause as in its reworded counterpart using “[that]”.
More examples:
“Have you decided which college you will attend?” (NOT “Have you decided which college will you attend?”)
“Will you tell me where we are going next?” (NOT “Will you tell me where are we going next?”)
Again, you can split this into TWO separate questions, and THEN the word order will be reversed in EACH:
“Which college WILL YOU attend? Have you decided?”
IF the question portion is set off with a comma and used in the sense of “Please, …”, THEN the next part becomes the MAIN question again, and it is reordered:
“Do you know, what time is it?” (i.e., “Please, sir, what time is it?”)
“Could you tell me, where is the library?” (“Please, madam, where is the library?”)
But the comma is MANDATORY, and this construction should be avoided, if possible.
