wh-word

An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of them start with '' wh-'' (compare Five Ws). They may be used in both direct questions (''Where is he going?'') and in indirect questions (''I wonder where he is going''). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used as relative pronouns in certain relative clauses (''The country where he was born'') and certain adverb 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 the interrogative particle, which serves to convert a statement into a yes–no question, without having any other meaning. Examples include ''est-ce que'' in French, ли ''li'' in Russian, ''czy'' in Polish, чи ''chy in'' Ukrainian, ''ĉu'' in Esperanto, ''āyā'' آیا in Persian, কি ''ki'' in Bengali, / ''ma'' in Mandarin Chinese, '/' in Turkish, ''pa'' in Ladin, ''ka'' in Japanese, ''kka'' in Korean, ''ko/kö'' in Finnish and (да) ли ''(da) li'' in Serbo-Croatian. ''"Is it true that..."'' would be a similar construct in English. Such particles contrast with other interrogative words, which form what are called ''wh''-questions rather than yes–no questions.

For more information about the grammatical rules for forming 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 ''whither'' and ''whence'' are interrogative adverbs when they modify a verb. In the question ''How did you announce the deal?'' the interrogative word ''how'' is an interrogative adverb because it modifies the verb ''did'' (past tense of ''to do''). In the question ''Why should I read that book?'' the interrogative word ''why'' is an interrogative adverb because it describes the verb ''should''.

Note, 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
* 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?"

Etymology

Ultimately, the English interrogative pronouns (those beginning with '' wh'' in addition to the word ''how''), derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ''k^wo-'' or ''k^wi'', the former of which was reflected in Proto-Germanic as ''χ^wa-'' or ''kh^wa-'', due to Grimm's law.

These underwent further sound changes and spelling changes, notably ''wh''-cluster reductions, resulting in the initial sound being either /w/ (in most dialects) or /h/ (''how, who'') and the initial spelling being either ''wh'' or ''h'' (''how''). This was the result of two sound changes – /hw/ > /h/ before /uː/ (''how, who'') and /hw/ > /w/ otherwise – and the spelling change from ''hw'' to ''wh'' in Middle English. The unusual pronunciation versus spelling of ''who'' is because the vowel was formerly /aː/, and thus it did not undergo the sound change in Old English, but in Middle English (following spelling change) the vowel changed to /uː/ and it followed the same sound change as ''how'' before it, but with the Middle English spelling unchanged.

In ''how'' (Old English ''hū'', from Proto-Germanic ''χ^wō''), the ''w'' merged into the lave of the word, as it did in Old Frisian ''hū, hō'' (Dutch ''hoe'' "how"), but it can still be seen in Old Saxon ''hwō'', Old High German ''hwuo'' (German ''wie'' "how"). In English, the gradual change of voiceless stops into voiceless fricatives (phase 1 of Grimm's law) during the development of Germanic languages is responsible for "wh-" of interrogatives. Although some varieties of American English and various Scottish dialects still preserve the original sound (i.e. �rather than , most have only the

The words ''who'', ''whom'', ''whose'', ''what'' and ''why'', can all be considered to come from a single Old English word ''hwā'', reflecting its masculine and feminine nominative (''hwā''), dative (''hwām''), genitive (''hwæs''), neuter nominative and accusative (''hwæt''), and instrumental (masculine and neuter singular) (''hwȳ'', later ''hwī'') respectively. Other interrogative words, such as ''which'', ''how'', ''where'', ''whence'', or ''whither'', derive either from compounds (''which'' coming from a compound of ''hwā'' hat, whoand ''līc'' ike, or other words from the same root (''how'' deriving from ''hū'').

The Proto-Indo-European root also directly originated the Latin and Romance form ''qu-'' in words such as Latin ''quī'' ("which") and ''quando'' ("when"); it has also undergone sound and spelling changes, as in French '' qui'' "which", with initial /k/, and Spanish '' cuando,'' with initial /kw/.

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 pronouns in Australian 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 pronominal stems are sometimes called ignoratives or epistememes because their broader function is to convey differing degrees of perceptual or epistemic 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 other morphology such as case-marking. In Jingulu, for example, the single stem ''nyamba'' may come to mean 'what,' 'where,' 'why,' or 'how' through combination with locative, dative, ablative, and instrumental case suffixes:

(Adapted from Pensalfini)

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.’

Mushin (1995) and Verstraete (2018) provide detailed overviews of the broader functions of ignoratives in an array of languages. The latter focuses on the lexeme ''ngaani'' in many Paman Languages which can have a Wh-like interrogative function but can also have a sense of epistemic indefiniteness or uncertainty like 'some' or 'perhaps;' see the following examples from Umpithamu:

Wh-question

Adnominal / Determiner

Adverbial

(Verstraete 2018)

See also

*Five Ws
* Indeterminate pronoun
*Sentence function

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Interrogative Word
Interrogative words and phrases