How to make questions to there is/ there are sentences?

Question

E.G. The sentence is: There is a desk in my room. I have to make a question starting with "where" to this sentence. Which of my questions is grammatically correct and more natural: 1. Where is the desk? 2. Where is there a desk?

Answer 1

Both sentences are correct, although they have different meanings:

1. Where is THE desk? This is asking about a specific desk.

2. Where is there A desk? This is asking about any desk.

So, considering the sentence you are using to make the question:

"There is a desk in my room."

the correct question would be the second one:

Where is there A desk?

since the answer is using the indefinite article "a."

To the question, "Where is THE desk?", the answer would be "The desk is in my room", rather than "There is A desk in my room."

Answer 2

A sentence beginning with "There is..." or "There are..." can actually have two distinct meanings. Philosophers desire exact precision in wordings and no ambiguities if possible. The sentence "There is a desk in my room." may identify the LOCATION of a particular desk, therefore the question would be "Where is (that particular) desk located?". But there's an existential import of the statement "There is a desk in my room" reference the existence of a particular desk rather than just it's location. If understood this way a million questions would then arise "How did that desk get in my room?", "Who made that desk?" "Is the desk that appears to be in my room actually there?" Was the person making the statement "There is a desk in my room" being facetitious? Does the word "desk" have a meaning in the speakers mind other than an ordinary desk? But perhaps the most important question is why does the speaker focus on the desk in the room and not the hot long-leggedy secretary who sits BEHIND the desk. Yes indeed, that is the question! Unless you are into Zen, then the question would be "Is that a desk in my room? Does the room enclose the desk? Is the desk an entity in its own right, or contingent on the one observing the desk? So likewise would a quantum physicist or Immanuel Kant ponder if the desk's existence were a necessity or a contingency ?

I personally wonder why all this fuss about desks? Is the desk here possibly a sexual fetish replacing the lack of some other entity in the speaker's mind? And why all this fuss about grammar as if the rules of grammar (either tradition, convention or the arbitrary whim of grammarians) are written in stone by the finger of God. Have you ever found anything worth reading that was written by a grammarian?

Answer 3

Where is the desk... I'm glad someone mentioned something about grammar! Too many people think that putting a ? at the end of a sentence makes it a question.

Answer 4

Where is the desk is more grammatically correct...although number 2 is correct, number 1 sounds more correct.

Answer 5

Where is the desk?
the second sentence is wrong.

Answer 6

Where is the desk

Answer 7

They both work, but "Where is the desk?" sounds a little less wordy and deffinatley more natural