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Look at these 2 sentences

  1. Who do you think is the richest man ?
  2. Who do you think you are ?

Try omit "do you think" and we can see the conflict. Because people often ask "Who are you". But with "do you think", it has no inversion

I see they are the same structure, but why is there no inversion (subject and verb) in the second sentence ?

onmyway133
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    Your premise is wrong. These do not have the same structure. In the first one, who is the subject. In the second one, who is the object. To have the first structure in the second case, you would have to ask, "Who do you think is you?", and you would still have the inversion. – RegDwigнt May 26 '13 at 11:43
  • @RegDwighт I've already known about that. But my question is different. Try omit "do you think" and you can see the conflict. Also, "Who do you think is you", I think "you" must come with "are" ? – onmyway133 May 26 '13 at 14:24
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    Obviously you do not understand. You just repeated your question all over again. I will have to repeat myself, then. In the first question, who is the subject, and the richest man is the object. Who is the richest man. In the second question, you is the subject, and who is the object. You are who. Not, who is you, in which case you'd have the inversion right back. – RegDwigнt May 26 '13 at 15:05

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