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I was told that we don't use inversion when asking about the subject of a sentence.
I encountered these two sentences while surfing the internet.
Whose book won the prize?
Whose gloves are these?
If these are subject questions then why is there inversion in the second sentence?
There is no inversion in the second sentence. These gloves are whose? Is equally valid as a question.
Your answer is in the verb “to be” as opposed to the verb “to win” and all other verbs.
The webpage http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/to_be.htm explains the two forms of the verb “to be” – your example uses the linking form.
The verb “To be” acts as a linking verb, joining the sentence subject with a subject complement or adjective complement. A linking verb provides no action to a sentence: the subject complement re-identifies the subject; the adjective complement modifies it.
The result is that the nouns/noun phrases, etc on either side of the verb to be are equal and there is no subject or object to invert: it is the interrogative that creates the question.
If I adapt the two examples from the link:
Whose professor is the Director of Online Learning? - The Director of Online Learning is whose professor?
Which/Whose/What trip to Yellowstone was fantastic?
In the first one the question word is replaced with the referent asked about without disturbing the word order:
Whose book won the prize?
His book won the prize.
The other question has a completely different structure. Here we have a linking be, so factors relevant for this construction are in play. The answer will involve a reversal of the subject and complement:
Whose gloves are these?
These are my gloves.
The subject and the complement swapped the places in the answer - instead of simply supplying "my" and saying "My gloves are these" the order has to be reversed too: "These are my gloves". This is where the sense of inversion comes from.
"My gloves are these" is a perfectly formed sentence, but it is not a possible answer to the question. (or more precisely, it would be a very unlikely reading. One would need to be extremely proud of his gloves and also very melodramatic sounding to put it that way.) The question asks not to point to a specific pair of gloves, but rather to tell something about them. (who they belong to). In general, reversing the positions of the subject and complement in the ascriptive linking construction is possible but not all that common.
"These" is a demonstrative and it obviously cannot be understood as ascribing a property to the subject "My gloves". Of course, if we replace "these" with an adjective, no role reversal in the answer will occur:
Whose gloves are the warmest?
My gloves are the warmest.
The expected and natural order in the ascriptive construction is : subject - property ascribed to the subject. "My gloves - warmest" fits the ascriptive pattern, "My gloves - these" doesn't. "These - my gloves" does.
If the question is asking to specify the subject, no reversal of roles will be required either:
Which gloves are yours?
These gloves are mine.
The question determines the kind of interpretation that the answer will receive. In writing, the sentence "These gloves are mine" in isolation can be interpreted in two ways. When spoken, the sentence stress will suggest the appropriate interpretation.
