Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. The mother asked the child, “Will you tell me who did accompany you to the airport?”
- (a)who accompanies you
- (b)who does accompany you
- (c)who accompanied you
- (d)who must be accompanied you
Answer
Why
Correct — C. who is the subject of the embedded question, so the verb carries its own tense and no auxiliary is needed: who accompanied you.
Do-support belongs to direct questions with a non-subject wh-word (Who did you accompany?) or to emphasis (He did go). Folded inside tell me, the clause keeps statement word order, and the airport trip is over, so the plain past tense is what fits → option (c).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)who accompanies you — accompanies is present simple, but the trip to the airport is finished and the mother is asking about it afterwards. The completed event needs a past tense.
- (b)who does accompany you — This keeps the original do-support error and only shifts it to the present. An emphatic does insists or contradicts; it does not form a neutral embedded question.
- (d)who must be accompanied you — be accompanied is passive and cannot then take you as its object. The string must be accompanied you is not a possible verb phrase in any tense.
Concept
An embedded question is a question folded inside another clause — tell me who..., I wonder where.... It keeps statement word order and drops the auxiliary a direct question would need: Tell me where he lives, never Tell me where does he live.
A second rule stacks on top here. When the wh-word is itself the subject, even a direct question takes no auxiliary — Who broke the window?, not Who did break the window?. Both rules push the same way, and both are satisfied by the single word accompanied.
The mother's words are quoted directly, so no backshift for reported speech is being asked of you. All that has to change is the auxiliary and the tense the event itself demands.
Key facts
- A subject wh-question takes no do-support: Who called you?, not Who did call you?
- An embedded question keeps statement order: Tell me where he lives.
- Did plus the base form is ordinary in negatives (I did not tell you) and in object wh-questions (Who did you accompany?), and emphatic only in an affirmative statement such as I did tell you.
Study next
Common traps
- Treating did accompany as a past tense that needs a small repair, when the auxiliary should not be there at all
- Choosing a present tense because the sentence opens with the future will
This is the substitute-the-underlined-segment format, which this paper also runs at English Q.4 (also 12 Sep 2024, 16:00). The same auxiliary-and-word-order test decides the passive question at English Q.19, where Who invited you to this party? becomes By whom were you invited.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.