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Aninterrogative word orquestion word is afunction word used to ask aquestion, such aswhat, which,when,where,who, whom, whose,why,whether andhow. They are sometimes calledwh-words, because inEnglish most of them start withwh- (compareFive Ws). Most may be used in both direct (Where is he going?) and inindirect questions (I wonder where he is going). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used asrelative pronouns in certainrelative clauses (The country where he was born) and certainadverb clauses (I go where he goes). It can also be used as a modal, since question words are more likely to appear in modal sentences, like (Why was he walking?)
A particular type of interrogative word is theinterrogative particle, which serves to convert a statement into ayes–no question, without having any other meaning. Examples includeest-ce que inFrench, лиli inRussian,czy inPolish, чиchy inUkrainian,ĉu inEsperanto,āyā آیا inPersian, কিki inBengali,嗎/吗ma inMandarin Chinese,mı/mi/mu/mü[1] inTurkish,pa inLadin,かka inJapanese,까kka inKorean,ko/kö[1] in Finnish,Kasi (or "Ka" for short) inTumbuka,tat inCatalan, (да) ли(da) li inSerbo-Croatian andal andotein Basque."Is it true that..." and"... right?" would be a similar construct in English. Suchparticles contrast with other interrogative words, which form what are calledwh-questions rather than yes–no questions.
For more information about the grammatical rules for using formed questions in various languages, seeInterrogative.
Interrogative words in English can serve as interrogative determiners, interrogative pronouns, or interrogative adverbs. Certainpronominal adverbs may also be used as interrogative words, such aswhereby orwherefore.
The interrogative wordswhich,what andwhose areinterrogative determiners when specifying anoun ornominal phrase: The questionWhich farm is the county’s largest? specifies the nounfarm asdefinite, whileWhat farm? is indefinite. In the questionWhose gorgeous, pink painting is that?,whose is theinterrogative,personal,possessive determiner prompting a specification for the possessor of the noun phrasegorgeous pink painting.
The interrogative wordswho,whom,whose,what andwhich are interrogative pronouns when used in the place of anoun ornoun phrase. In the questionWho is the leader?, the interrogative wordwho is a interrogativepronoun because it stands in the place of the noun or noun phrase the question prompts (e.g.the king orthe woman with the crown). Similarly, in the questionWhich leads to the city center? the interrogative wordwhich is an interrogative pronoun because it stands in the place of a noun or noun phrase (e.g.the road to the north orthe river to your east). Note,which is an interrogativepronoun, not an interrogativedeterminer, because there is no noun or noun phrase present to serve as adeterminer for. Consequently, in the questionWhich leads to the city center? the wordwhich is an interrogative pronoun; when in the questionWhich road leads to the city center? the wordwhich is an interrogative determiner for the nounroad.
The interrogative wordswhere, when, how, why, whether, whatsoever, and the more archaicwhither andwhence are interrogativeadverbs when they modify a verb. In the questionHow did you announce the deal? the interrogative wordhow is an interrogative adverb because it modifies the verbdid (past tense ofto do). In the questionWhy should I read that book? the interrogative wordwhy is an interrogative adverb because it describes the verbshould.
Note, in direct questions, interrogative adverbs always describeauxiliary verbs such asdid,do,should,will,must, ormight.
A yes–no question can begin with an interrogative subject-verb inversion involving an auxiliary verb (or negative contraction), sometimes even if it is not performing the auxiliary function:
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?"
Most English interrogative words can take thesuffix-ever, to form words such aswhatever andwherever. (Older forms of the suffix are-so and-soever, as inwhoso andwhomsoever.) These words have the following main meanings:
Some of these words have also developed independent meanings, such ashowever as anadverb meaning "nonetheless";whatsoever as an emphatic adverb used withno,none,any,nothing, etc. (I did nothing wrong whatsoever); andwhatever in its slang usage.
A frequent class of interrogative words in several other languages is the interrogative verb:
Chi
You
yaa-vch
do.what-CONC
jaahan
small
huuhed
child
bish
not
gej
that
bi
I
Chiyaa-vch jaahan huuhed bish gej bi bod-jii-ne
You do.what-CONC small child not that I think-PROG-NPAST
"Whatever you do, I think you're not a small child." (Example taken from an Internet forum)
Interrogativepronouns inAustralian Aboriginal languages are a diverse set of lexical items with functions extending far beyond simply the formation of questions (though this is one of their uses). These pronominalstems are sometimes calledignoratives orepistememes because their broader function is to convey differing degrees of perceptual orepistemic certainty. Often, a singular ignorative stem may serve a variety of interrogative functions that would be expressed by different lexical items in, say, English through contextual variation and interaction with othermorphology such ascase-marking. InJingulu, for example, the single stemnyamba may come to mean 'what', 'where', 'why' or 'how' through combination withlocative,dative,ablative, andinstrumental case suffixes:
nyamba-mbili-kaji
nyamba-mbili-kaji mankiyi-mindi-ju
IGNOR-LOC-through sit-1DU.INCL-do
Where are we sitting?
Nyamba-rna arrkuja-nga-nku-ju
IGNOR-DAT scratch-1SG-REFL-do
Why are you scratching?
Nyamba-arndi-kaji
Nyamba-arndi-kaji nya-rriyi-rni
IGNOR-INST-through 2SG-go.FUT-FOC
How will you go?
(Adapted from Pensalfini[2])
Other closely related languages, however, have less interrelated ways of forming wh-questions with separatelexemes for each of these wh-pronouns. This includesWardaman, 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)[4] and Verstraete (2018)[5] provide detailed overviews of the broader functions of ignoratives in an array of languages. The latter focuses on the lexemengaani in manyPaman Languages which can have aWh-like interrogative function but can also have a sense of epistemic indefiniteness or uncertainty like 'some' or 'perhaps;' see the following examples fromUmpithamu:
Wh-question
Ngaani-ku mi'athi-ngka=uurra-athungku
IGNOR-DAT cry-PRS=2PL.NOM-1SG.ACC
Why are you all crying for me?
yukurun
gear
ngaani
kuura
behind
yukurun ngaani yitha-n=antyampa kuura
gear IGNOR leave-PST=1PL.EXCL.NOM behind
We left some gear behind
Yupa
today
miintha
good
ngaani
ngama-l
see-IMPERF
Yupa miintha iluwa ngaani ngama-l
today good 3SG.NOM IGNOR see-IMPERF
Perhaps she is better today.
(Verstraete 2018)
In Esperanto, all interrogative pronouns have two syllables, and begin with the stressed syllable "ki-".
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