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I took one problem from my book:
A friend is going to the cinema. You want to know the name of the film. You say:
Key answer: What's the name of the film you're going to see?
Can I say something like this:
What's the name of the film in the cinema you're going to?
It sounds OK to me, but I want to now whether this is grammatical or not and please tell me why the reason and the alternative if it's not. Thanks!
in the cinema is not needed. going to at the end is fine.
Declarative sentence: X is the name of the movie we are going to see. Question sentence form: What's the name of the movie you're going to [see?].
In fact, in English, there are many, many times in speech where the verb after to is left out if it is understood.
Here are a few examples:
Q: Would they like to go out with us? A: They'd like to [go out with us] but they can't.
Person 1: I want to go early so I can get a seat at the event.
Person 2: Yes, I want to, too.
Person 1: We wouldn't go to the bank if we didn't want to [go to the bank], would we?
Person 2: No, we wouldn't.
This can get complicated but basically the idea is that you do not need to repeat certain verbs or verb phrases, if they are already known.
[2] What's the name of the film in the cinema you're going to?
[2] is incomplete.
We could say
What's the name of the film [being screened] in the cinema you're going to?
