What day is today? ou What is day today?

Pessoal, geralmente em perguntas o verbo principal deve vir antes do pronome. Então por que no caso de "What day is today?" o "is" não vem antes de "day" (What is day today?)?

E é correto dizer "Today is Monday?" ou o certo seria "Is today Monday?".
Se for a última resposta a correta, então deve ser usado o "it" (Is it today Monday?) ou não? Acredito que não deva, já que só devemos usar "it" para sujeito oculto, e como na frase o sujeito não é oculto (today) então não vai "it". Eu certo?

Na frase "Is Monday today?" é um pouco diferente a construção da frase, mas tem as mesmas palavas. Então nesse caso, devo usar o "it" (Is it Monday today?) ou também não devo usar já que o sujeito (today) não está oculto?

Agradeço a ajuda.

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Hey there,

I would like to point out that there are variants without the preliminary subject (complement): What day/date is today?
So, shall we study each one of them?
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Let's start our topic regarding on the word "today".

Today

1- Adverb:

A) Hoje
Are you going to town today? = Você vai à cidade hoje?

B) A week today.
(BrE daqui a uma semana)

C) Hoje em dia, atualmente.

2- Noun:

A) (este dia) = hoje.
Have you read today’s paper yet? = Você já leu o jornal de hoje?

B) (a atualidade) = hoje.
Today’s women = as mulheres de hoje.
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Now, shall we check the word day?
Day is a noun and it means dia.

In Portuguese, we also use the word day to make a reference to the morning:

>> Bom dia! = Good morning!

>> Que dia é hoje? = What day is it today?

>> Prefiro tirar as fotos de dia (à luz do dia) = I’d prefer to take the photos in the daylight.

>> [data] Hoje é dia sete de setembro. = [date] Today is the seventh of September / Today is September seventh.

>> [data] Elas chegam no dia dez. = They arrive on the tenth.
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Now, regarding on your question, follow the answer:

1- Is it Monday today?
>> Here, "today" is an adverb.

2- Is today Monday? = Is it Monday?
>> Here, "today" is a noun and can be replaced by the subject pronoun it.

[Long answers]: Yes, today is Monday. / No, today isn't Monday.
[Short answers]: Yes, it is. / No, it isn't.

3. What day is today? / What is the day today?
>> In this question we do not have only a noun but also a pronoun, a verb and and adverb. So the word order must be: [INTERROGATIVE PRONOUN + NOUN + VERB TO BE + ADVERB]. Despite the second question is also grammatically correct, I doubt you'd hear many people saying 'What's the day today?' Even if we use the definite article, the answer will probably be the same.

If you want to do a review about pronouns, please take a good look on:
(1) https://www.englishexperts.com.br/pronomes-no-ingles/

The confusion related to the day of the week and the month is also presented in Portuguese language.
- Que dia é hoje?
- Hoje é quarta-feira.
- Não, eu me referi ao dia do mês.
- Hoje é dia 11 de outubro.

4. Another good option would be:

>> What day are we on?

However, the confusion regarding to the answer would be the same.
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What day is today / What day is it today?

Although the questions What day is today? and What day is it today are correct, it may help to think of them in terms of the statements that answer them.

The simpler form "What day is today?" is answered by "Today is[...]"
The more common "What day is it today?" is answered by "It is [...] today", where it is a pleonastic pronoun.

However, I should say both questions are quite confusing because some people will understand you want to know the day of the month instead the day of the week. The latter is more common, in my opinion.

So, in case we want to know any specific date, the appropriated questions are:

>> What is today's date?
>> What date is today?
>> What is the date today?
>> What is the current date?

I consider the questions in bold more common.
Regardless of which question you choose, the answer will be "October 10th, 2017" anyway.
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We already have a similar discussion here on English Experts. You should have read:
como-dizer-que-dia-e-hoje-em-ingles-t22026.html
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I hope we've helped.

So long,

Ricardo.

REFERENCES:
(1) Pearson Education. Longman Dictionary. 2004.
(2) Moro, A. The raising of predicates. Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Cambridge University Press. 1997.