Interrogative word

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An interrogative word or question word is a

A particular type of interrogative word is the interrogative particle, which serves to convert a statement into a

For more information about the grammatical rules for using formed questions in various languages, see Interrogative.

In English

Interrogative words in English can serve as interrogative determiners, interrogative pronouns, or interrogative adverbs. Certain pronominal adverbs may also be used as interrogative words, such as whereby or wherefore.

Interrogative determiner

The interrogative words which, what, and whose are interrogative determiners when used to prompt the specification of a presented noun or noun phrase such as in the question Which farm is the largest? where the interrogative determiner which prompts specification of the noun farm. In the question Whose gorgeous, pink painting is that?, whose is the interrogative, personal, possessive determiner prompting a specification for the possessor of the noun phrase gorgeous pink painting.

Interrogative pronoun

The interrogative words who, whom, whose, what, and which are interrogative pronouns when used in the place of a noun or noun phrase. In the question Who is the leader?, the interrogative word who is a interrogative pronoun because it stands in the place of the noun or noun phrase the question prompts (e.g. the king or the woman with the crown). Similarly, in the question Which leads to the city center? the interrogative word which is an interrogative pronoun because it stands in the place of a noun or noun phrase (e.g. the road to the north or the river to your east). Note, which is an interrogative pronoun, not an interrogative determiner, because there is no noun or noun phrase present to serve as a determiner for. Consequently, in the question Which leads to the city center? the word which is an interrogative pronoun; when in the question Which road leads to the city center? the word which is an interrogative determiner for the noun road.

Interrogative adverb

The interrogative words where, when, how, why, whether, whatsoever, and the more archaic

Note, in direct questions, interrogative adverbs always describe auxiliary verbs such as did, do, should, will, must, or might.

Yes–no questions

Yes–no questions can begin with an interrogative particle, such as:

• A conjugation of be (e.g. "Are you hungry?")
• A conjugation of do (e.g. "Do you want fries?") - see Do-support § In questions
• A conjugation of another auxiliary verb, including contractions (e.g. "Can't you move any faster?")

English questions can also be formed without an interrogative word as the first word, by changing the intonation or punctuation of a statement. For example: "You're done eating?"

Forms with -ever

Most English interrogative words can take the suffix -ever, to form words such as whatever and wherever. (Older forms of the suffix are -so and -soever, as in whoso and whomsoever.) These words have the following main meanings:

• As more emphatic interrogative words, often expressing disbelief or puzzlement in mainly rhetorical questions: Whoever could have done such a thing? Wherever has he gone?
• To form
  free relative clauses, as in I'll do whatever you do, Whoever challenges us shall be punished, Go to wherever they go. In this use, the nominal -ever words (who(m)ever, whatever, whichever) can be regarded as indefinite pronouns or as relative pronouns
  .
• To form adverbial clauses with the meaning "no matter where/who/etc.": Wherever they hide, I will find them.

Some of these words have also developed independent meanings, such as however as an adverb meaning "nonetheless"; whatsoever as an emphatic adverb used with no, none, any, nothing, etc. (I did nothing wrong whatsoever); and whatever in its slang usage.

Other languages

A frequent class of interrogative words in several other languages is the interrogative verb:

• Korean:

• Mongolian:

Australian Aboriginal languages

Interrogative

(Adapted from Pensalfini^[2])

Other closely related languages, however, have less interrelated ways of forming wh-questions with separate lexemes for each of these wh-pronouns. This includes Wardaman, which has a collection of entirely unrelated interrogative stems: yinggiya 'who,' ngamanda 'what,' guda 'where,' nyangurlang 'when,' gun.garr-ma 'how many/what kind.'^[3]

Mushin (1995)

Adnominal / Determiner

Adverbial

(Verstraete 2018)

See also

• Five Ws
• Indeterminate pronoun
• Sentence function

References