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In English it would be strange to have more than one "WH question" word in a
sentence,

For example:

> Tomorrow, where are we meeting, at what time and to do what ?

It sounds like it's grammatical English, but nevertheless it sure sounds odd
(or an intentional joke) at best.

In Japanese, what is the stand on sentences that has more than one "WH" word?
e.g:

> 明日、何時にどこで何をしに会いますか。
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2011-09-14T09:16:00.960
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2011-09-14T12:31:14.610
2011-09-14T09:22:19.220
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question
grammar questions
Is it grammatical to have more than one "WH question" words in a sentence?
It's fine, although, as in English, if you stack up too many you end up with
something faintly ridiculous, of course. (This can even be emphasised for
humorous purposes: try Googling "地球が何回回った時").

Still, I would say that Japanese is more tolerant of multiple WH- words in a
sentence than English is, maybe because in Japanese the WH- words can be left
in place rather than fronted, and so the result is less structurally
remarkable.

(Come to think of it, in English, too, multiple WH- words don't seem
particularly objectionable when they're in a non-fronted structure: "You went
WHERE with WHO?" "Wait, who said what to who now?" etc.)
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2011-09-14T11:38:34.637
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2011-09-14T11:38:34.637
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answer
Multiple wh-question is fine in any language as far as I am aware of. The
relevant parts in the answer are related by some function or are lists.

> English:  
> A: Who is meeting whom where when to do what tomorrow?  
> B: John is meeting Bill at 3:00 at school to review the class [single
> answer]  
> B': John is meeting Bill at 3:00 at school to review the class, Tom is
> meeting Dave at 1:30 in front of the tree to go to the gym, ... [list
> answer]  
> B'': The first graders are meething their caretakers in the hall at 2:00 to
> talk about next week. [functional answer]
>
> Japanese:  
> A: 明日、誰がいつ何処で何のために誰と会うの?  
> B: ジョンが三時に学校でビルと復習するために会うんだよ。 [single answer]  
> B': ジョンが三時に学校でビルと復習するために、トムがデーブと一時半に木の前で運動しにいくために、... [list answer]  
> B'': 一年生たちが二時に集会場でそれぞれの保護者と来週の打ち合わせのために会うんだよ。 [functional answer]

In languages like English, one wh-phrase moves to the beginning of the
sentence. In languages like Japanese, none of the wh-phrase is obligatorily
moved. In languages like Serbo-Croatian, all of the wh-phrases move to the
beginning of the sentence.
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2011-09-14T12:31:14.610
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2011-09-14T12:31:14.610
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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answer