Which example demonstrates a syntactic error?

Which example demonstrates a syntactic error?

• A. Turn-taking in discourse
• B. I won you in soccer
• C. What time it is?
• D. The meaning of a sentence depends on context

Answer: (C)

Understanding how English forms questions helps spot a syntactic error. When you front a question word like “What time,” English normally moves the auxiliary verb before the subject, giving the standard form: “What time is it?” The sentence “What time it is?” leaves the auxiliary in place and doesn’t invert, which makes it ungrammatical in standard English. That incorrect word order is a syntactic mistake—the structure of the sentence is not how English normally builds questions. The other ideas here aren’t about sentence structure. Turn-taking in discourse relates to how people manage speaking turns in conversation; whether a meaning depends on context deals with semantics or pragmatics; and while “I won you in soccer” is unusual in usage, it still follows a basic subject–verb–object pattern and reflects lexical or semantic oddity rather than a syntactic error.

Understanding how English forms questions helps spot a syntactic error. When you front a question word like “What time,” English normally moves the auxiliary verb before the subject, giving the standard form: “What time is it?” The sentence “What time it is?” leaves the auxiliary in place and doesn’t invert, which makes it ungrammatical in standard English. That incorrect word order is a syntactic mistake—the structure of the sentence is not how English normally builds questions.

The other ideas here aren’t about sentence structure. Turn-taking in discourse relates to how people manage speaking turns in conversation; whether a meaning depends on context deals with semantics or pragmatics; and while “I won you in soccer” is unusual in usage, it still follows a basic subject–verb–object pattern and reflects lexical or semantic oddity rather than a syntactic error.