What did they do about the problem?
I think the structure of the sentence is like the following:
Subject = they
Verb = do
Object = What
Adverbial = about the problem
Is it correct? Please explain it to me.
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It is a question about a past action, hence the full verb is "did do", with inversion of the normal subject-verb-object order. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jul 31 '16 at 13:34
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Yes, essentially. The dummy auxiliary "did" is also a verb. – BillJ Jul 31 '16 at 16:59
What did they do about the problem?
What= Relative pronoun serving as an object (they did do [what])
Did= Auxiliary Do
They= Subject
Do= Verb
About = Preposition
Problem= Object of preposition
or
About the problem= Adverbial phrase modifying verb "do"
We can see that as TRomano said, there is inversion.
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I'd say that interrogative "what" is object of "do", not a relative pronoun. They did what about the problem? – BillJ Jul 31 '16 at 17:02
