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I've just stumbled on this sentence What colour eyes does she have? in my grammar book. What got me interested in this is the combination of the words colour, eyes with what and without any prepositions.

I just assume a construction like this is possible with some particular words such as colour, form, shape, size and so on. These words have ranges or multiple possibilities.

Let me try this out.

What size sofa did you buy?

Since I think it's similar to what kind of car do you have construction, I don't have to use an article before sofa or do I?

What shape pancakes does the shop sell?

Are these 2 correct / possible? They make sense?

Any thoughts on this? Am I even right or it's just an insane theory? haha

UPDATE: Ok I can conclude people have different takes on this. So I want to ask you guys a couple of more things that will help me to understand this point better

1) If I always use "of" in such cases, will it always be correct?

2) What do we do with an article if we have a singular noun? optional or needed? From what I gather if we have "of" we need or opt for an article. If we don't we have to drop it. Is it like this? These below are just examples but I'm asking about a general idea for this kind of sentences
What size (a) sofa did you buy?
What shape of (a) pancake did she buy?

Dunno
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  • For me, as a non-native speaker, these sentences sound weird. I would say "What colour are her eyes?". But a quick lookup on Google shows that "what colour eyes" might be acceptable in informal speech. Let's wait for the answers :) – Vilmar Apr 07 '14 at 12:40
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    As a native speaker, "what size sofa?" is fine, but I'd say "what shape of pancakes?" Same for "what breed of dog does he own?" I haven't spent that long thinking about it, but off the top of my head I can't come up with any rule for when you need the "of". You certainly don't need the "of" for color, size, length, height, weight. – Peter Shor Apr 07 '14 at 13:03
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    @Peter I'd say it's different in the UK. I'd not expect anything beyond 'What colour ...' and 'What size ..' to be used without an 'of'. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 07 '14 at 13:18
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    @EdwinAshworth What size shoes are those? doesn’t sound so bad, but What brand shoes are those?* certainly does. – tchrist Apr 07 '14 at 13:31
  • I've just come up with 'What strength acid ...' which sounds acceptable. And probably 'What price wine ...' – Edwin Ashworth Apr 07 '14 at 13:32
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    @Edwin isn't this just an inversion? What size are those shoes? What size shoes are those? We often say those are size 7 shoes, etc. So, I think this is just an inversion of that form for the question. – David M Apr 07 '14 at 13:38
  • Neat question. I don't have a problem with "What thickness paper do you want?", or indeed "What capacity disk is this?", but I suspect every different speaker will have some vague concept of where they draw the line. "What grade sandpaper do you sell?" works for me, but not "What coarseness* sandpaper do you sell?"* – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '14 at 13:45
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    @David: I think you may have put your finger on it (or at least, a relevant factor). My "coarseness" example fails because I also can't say "The sandpaper is coarseness X". But since I can say things like "The children are all age[d] seven or older", I find I can also ask "What age children do you teach?". The matter of whether it should be age or aged is intriguing there, though. I can't actually enunciate the /d/ in the question form, but I've no idea whether whether my "inner grammarian" wants it there or not. As with "I use[d] to trust my instincts", I'm "ambivalent". – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '14 at 14:01
  • @FumbleFingers: so what ambivalence are you? I love how this question spins out in the comments and completely illustrates my own ambivalence :) – oerkelens Apr 07 '14 at 14:16
  • @oerkelens: The fact that no-one is [yet] prepared to post an actual "answer" suggests we don't actually know why the usage works in some contexts but not others. Everyone has their own "inner grammarian" who either accepts or rejects any given form, but it seems to me that this is one of those cases where we can't easily interrogate him to ask "What specifically* governs your ruling in any given case?"*. – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '14 at 14:25
  • @Fumble I made an attempt. – David M Apr 07 '14 at 14:48
  • It's even worse than I thought. I'd be unfazed by 'What length dress was she wearing?' but jarred by 'What length book was she reading? I think there's a discrete (or pseudo-discrete) v continuous influence. 'What colour eyes did she have'v ?'What shade eyes did she have?' – Edwin Ashworth Apr 08 '14 at 19:28
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    @Dunno: You might want to look at “How big of a problem” vs. “how big a problem”. Note that few if any native speakers would include "of" in your "I want to ask you a couple of* more things". But consider something like "We know we have a problem! We just don't yet know how big of a problem it is!"*. I would say that "of" is unnecessary (and maybe, "ungrammatical" to some), and I would never use it in writing. But in casual speech it seems relatively unexceptional. – FumbleFingers Apr 10 '14 at 13:46
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    Using 'of' will probably never be ungrammatical, but may well sound a little unusual with some nouns. The first noun does not control choice in all situations, either: I'd usually say 'What size shirt do you wear?' but 'What size of earthquakes can be caused by fracking?' Perhaps there's a formality issue. I'd check eg 'What colour eyes does she have?' v 'What colour of eyes does she have?' in Google searches to see which seems more common, until one begins to sound correct. // Omitting 'a' seems far more common. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 10 '14 at 13:47
  • @EdwinAshworth Omitting 'a' seems far more common You mean in both What size (a) sofa did you buy? and What shape of (a) pancake did she buy? – Dunno Apr 10 '14 at 13:59
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    I'd struggle to find an acceptable example for What ... a N did ... . With What ... of a N did ... , I'd say the 'a' is usually omitted. It would be more commonly included after type, sort, kind ... than say colour, size, make.... – Edwin Ashworth Apr 10 '14 at 14:05
  • @EdwinAshworth so genrally whether to omit 'a' or not it's got nothing to do with the presence of the preposition 'of' in a question? – Dunno Apr 10 '14 at 14:16
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    That's not what I said. The rule-of-thumb I'm suggesting is 'no of; no a // + of; usually no a'. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 10 '14 at 16:26

1 Answers1

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I believe this to be a case of inversion of an accepted alternate form. In other words: many times questions are formed by inversions of statements and this is an inversion.

What color[ed] eyes did she have?

Inverts (more or less):

She had blue colored eyes.

There is a tendency in spoken language to swallow the -ed at the end of a word. And, this tends to find its way into the written form. Hence color vs. colored.

When you consider this a truncation of the -ed, you will see that a preposition is no longer necessary because it is an adjective being used as an adverb.

Consider another case:

What size shoes do you wear?
I wear size 7 shoes.

Most people don't say sized 7 shoes. So, this form stays intact in the question. And, you'd never say size 7 of shoes. So, you would be unlikely to use the form:

What size of shoes do you wear?

It just sounds awkward (at least to a speaker of AmE).

As, FumbleFingers rightly states in comments above: much of this is related to your "inner grammarian".

David M
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  • This doesn't work for "What age children do you teach"? You can't say "I teach age 6 children." – Peter Shor Apr 07 '14 at 14:51
  • @PeterShor I've heard people say just that. Or the related "I teach children age[d] 6." It always sounds awkward to my ear, but I do hear people say it. – David M Apr 07 '14 at 14:53
  • @DavidM Ok I can conclude that I can't just use "of" all the time to put a sentence right? What about the use of an article with singular nouns in, let's say, What size (a) sofa did you buy? What colour of (a) car does he have? needed or optional? – Dunno Apr 07 '14 at 15:08
  • @Dunno I would say for the first one: no a, definitely doesn't work. The second is awkward but (I believe) grammatical. Better to leave out the of a. – David M Apr 07 '14 at 15:54
  • @DavidM Could you take a look at the update. What do you think? – Dunno Apr 10 '14 at 12:55
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    @dunno The update has the same (a) sofa. It is definitely wrong there. If you use a you need of in front of it. Otherwise it makes my skin crawl. – David M Apr 10 '14 at 13:05
  • @DavidM Yeah I know. I was just trying to ask about the general idea (of + a), not those particular examples. I didn't do a good job of it. Too many variables. Some of which I didn't even know about it. )) Ok so I can use this If you use a you need of in front of it as a general guideline, right? – Dunno Apr 10 '14 at 15:10