AT English language There are several types of pronouns. Each of these types has its own functions and its own speech coloring in the language. Therefore, each type of pronoun is needed and important in the English language.

On our site we have already discussed some types of pronouns. Today we consider in detail interrogative pronouns in English.

From the very name of pronouns it follows that they serve to form questions. We will talk today about how this is done, what other functions interrogative pronouns have.

Friends, you know these words well, without which it is impossible to form a question in English. Simply, it is quite possible that you did not realize that these words are called interrogative pronouns or Interrogative Pronouns. Attention, here they are:

• Who? - Who?
• What? - What?
• Where? - Where? Where?
• When? - When?
• Why? - Why?
• how? - How?

Interrogative pronouns help form a special question or Special Question in English. Now let's look at each pronoun separately.

Who? - Who?

This pronoun refers to people, and in the question it acts as a subject. In this case, when forming a question, we do not use the auxiliary verb Do. In addition, the verb that comes immediately after Who? Must be in the third person singular. Note:

• Who knows the answer? - Whoknowsanswer?
• Who are these women? - Whothesewomen?
• Who wrotethisletter? - Who wrote this letter?

What? - What?

Pronoun What? Refers to inanimate objects. With it, we build a question when we want to know something about an object, actions or circumstances. With this pronoun we use the auxiliary verb Do in the question (if it is not a verb tobe). For example:

• What did you answer him? - Whatyouto himanswered?
• What is your name? - Howyouname is? (What is your name?)
• What do you wish for your help? - Whatyoudo you want your help?

Where? - Where? Where?

We use this pronoun when we want to ask about the location, location, etc. With this pronoun, we also use the verb Do tobe:

• Where did you meet Sam? - WhereyoumetSam?
• Where does Suzy go every morning? - WherewalksSusieeachmorning?
• Where did they bring the TV set? - Wheretheysufferedtelevision?

When? - When?

Pronoun When? We use it when we want to ask about the time. We also use the verb Do if it is not a verb tobe:

• When do you go to bed? - Whenyoulie downsleep?
• When does Alex get up? - WhenAlexwakes up?
• When did you see him for the last time? - Whenyousawhisinlastonce?

Why? - Why?

This pronoun helps to ask a question about a reason or purpose. To form a question with this word, we use the verb Do if it is not a verb tobe:

• why did you get up so early? - Whyyouwoke upSoearly?
• why is Andrew so tired? - WhyAndrewsuchtired?
• why do the children cry? - Whychildrencry?

how? - How?

This pronoun helps to ask a question about the manner of action, and also participates in the question “How much? How many? We also follow the auxiliary verb rule Do if the question does not include a verb tobe:

• how ereyourparents? - How are your parents?
• how did you get all these things?
• How many tickets did you get for tomorrow?

How to navigate in interrogative pronouns?

In order to quickly learn and navigate well in English interrogative pronouns, you need to train as much as possible to ask special questions in English.

Choose for yourself long sentences that contain as much information as possible and to which you can ask as many specific questions as possible. Such sentences can be found in the texts of textbooks or in fiction in English. For example:

Alex studies English, because he goes to London next year.

• Who studies English?
• Who goes to London next year?
• What language does Alex study?
• why does Alex learn English?
• What does Alex do next year?
• Where does Alex go next year?
• When does Alex go to London?

As you can see, we asked seven questions to a fairly short sentence. Try it too! Ask mentally questions to everything that you see around, to everything that happens. Use interrogative pronouns as often as possible, and you will definitely make friends with them! We wish you good luck!

→ Declension of interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns. Declension of interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns indicate that the sentence contains a question.

For example:

• What is a day or a century before that which is infinite? (A. Fet)
• On the how did you write before you could make paper from wood?

The pronoun "who" in an interrogative sentence refers to animated nouns denoting a person, animals; “what” - to inanimate nouns, meaning a question and an object, thing, phenomenon. The interrogative pronoun "whose" expresses the question of ownership; "what" - about a sign, quality; “how much” is a question about quantity, etc.

Interrogative pronouns vary in form. Among them are noun pronouns ( who what) pronouns-numerals ( How many), pronouns-adjectives ( which, which, whose). The pronouns of each of these groups have morphological features the part of speech that is being replaced.

Who? What? How?

Interrogative pronouns "who", "what", "how much" change in cases (as nouns and cardinal numbers). The pronouns "who", "what", and "how much" do not have gender forms.

The verb-predicate is consistent with the pronoun "who" in the masculine singular: Who's come?(even if the answer is about a woman or about many people). With the pronoun “what”, the verb-predicate agrees in the neuter singular: What was it? What happened?

Declension of interrogative pronouns "who", "what", "how much" (table)

Suggestion examples:

Who this is my brother. Whom are you waiting? With whom you have said? I dont know, about whom you're asking.

What this is? - Book. What he said? About what you think? What a business?

How are you old? How man came? How kilometers to the city? What time cities have you visited? how many volumes is this essay? How many did you turn people down?

Which? Which the? Whose?

Interrogative pronouns "which", "which", "whose" change like adjectives, by gender and number (what, what, what, what; which, which, which, which; whose, whose, whose, whose) and cases, that is, they are inclined.

Etymologically Russian interrogative pronoun " which” is associated with the Lithuanian kõks - “what”, the Latin word qualis - “what” (remember the word “qualification” and the English quality - quality) and denotes a question about quality, property, sign.

Word " which the" originally meant "which of the two." This word is Indo-European, compare with Lithuanian katràs - “which” (of two), Greek (Ionian) koteros - “which of two”, etc. Now it means: which one, from cash? For example: Which puppy are you getting?(which puppy is available)

Pronoun " whose"- possessive-interrogative, means the question of belonging to someone or something.

Declension of interrogative pronouns "which", "which" in the masculine singular. number in the table (for other forms, see topic)

Which weather today? Forgot, which today is the day.

Which the hour? Which did you make the list?

Declension of the pronoun "whose"

Interrogative pronouns(lat. pronomina interrogativa, eng. interrogative pronouns, also interrogative words) - pronouns, which mean that the speaker is not able to identify the object or its properties and encourages the listener to help him make this identification (cf. “who?”, “What?”, “What?”, “Which?”, etc. ). Sometimes interrogative pronouns are combined with relative ones into the category of interrogative-relative pronouns. This is due to the fact that the same pronouns are used to express direct and indirect questions.

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Subtitles

The main categories of interrogative pronouns and their features

Interrogative pronouns can be broken down into semantic categories such as Face, Subject, Posessor, Tool, Place, Quality, Quantity, Time, Modus operandi, Cause and others. The semantic category corresponds to the category of the word to which the interrogative pronoun refers. Not all categories are necessarily represented in any language. The part may be absent, the part may be combined into a larger category, and then it is considered that in the language a more fractional opposition is irrelevant. Semantic categories in different languages ​​are arranged differently, which is associated with the peculiarities of the grammar of a particular language.

Categories Face and Subject

This class includes such pronouns of the Russian language as who? what?.

Animation expression

opposition face vs. subject- this is a contrast in animation. Such an opposition is found almost everywhere, even in languages ​​with a weak opposition in terms of animation. It is believed that the following statement is close to universal: “Interrogative pronouns demonstrate a dichotomy human vs. not a human or, in more rare cases, animated vs. inanimate". However, there are languages ​​in which this opposition is absent, for example, in the languages ​​of Terena kuti"who what?" and guarequena iʃi"who what?"

On the other hand, it is possible to represent the category of animateness in more detail, as, for example, in the Ute language. Various sources provide different analysis category interrogative pronoun systems Person/Object this language:

• Sapir: human vs. animal versus subject
• Giwon: animated being vs. non-referential object vs. subject (< место) .

Number expression

In some languages, a distinction is possible in the pronoun who? singular and plural. Examples of such languages ​​are Finnish ( cook? - ketka?"who?" and mika? - mitka?"what?") and Turkish ( kim?? - kimler?"who?" and ne? - neler?"what?").

gender expression

There are languages ​​that distinguish between masculine and feminine in interrogative pronouns related to the category of person. Such a phenomenon is found, for example, in the Tamil language ( eval- "who? (about men)" and evan- "who? (about women)") and hausa ( wā̱nẹ̄- "who? (about men)" and wā̱cẹ̄- "who? (about women)"]).

Expression of politeness

In some languages ​​it is possible to express politeness with an interrogative pronoun. So, in Tamil, along with the pronouns "who?" there is a pronoun for women and men evar, common to both genders, expressing respect for the person who is potentially the object of the question. There are several degrees of politeness in Japanese: だれ Dare"who (neutral)?" - どのかた donokata and どなた donate"who (politely)?" - どちらさま dotira-sama"who (even more politely)?".

Categories Posessor and Tool

Category Posessor there are pronouns indicating that a certain person is the owner of a certain object, and the speaker wants to identify this person. In Russian, these are pronouns whose? and whom? in sentences like "Whose notebook is this?".

Category Tool pronouns are included that indicate that a certain action was performed with the help of an unknown object, and the speaker wants to identify this object. In Russian, this is a pronoun how?.

In the work of M. Sisow on the typology of interrogative pronouns, it is noted that no special forms for these categories were found: in all the languages ​​considered, they are case forms from category pronouns Face and Subject respectively. However, this view is not consistent Russian pronoun whose?, obviously unrelated to the pronoun who?.

Category Place

In addition to the pronoun "where?" in many languages ​​other category pronouns are found Place, but for the most part these are words with the meaning "where from?" and where?". Some languages, thanks to developed systems of locative cases, distinguish several types of interrogative pronouns of place, for example, the Lezgi language distinguishes six such pronouns:

Category Time

A language can have multiple category pronouns. Time, but this is quite rare and the number of such pronouns is small. For example, the Tuvalu language:

Aafea "when" anafea "when (in the past)" maafea "when (in the present)"

Category Quantity

This opposition is still poorly understood, but it seems that there is a close relationship between the categories Measure/Degree and Quantity:

Category Quality

Pronouns of this category are traditionally formed from other interrogative words (eng. what kind of, German was für ein). The exception is the Latin language with the pronoun qualis and the Wataman language gungarrma, which in translation is often conveyed by interrogative pronouns of categories Quantity and Way:

Gungarrma madin what.kind word.ABS "What is this word?"

Verb interrogative pronouns

There are certain patterns of derivation of interrogative pronouns in the language. Thus, category pronouns Face are almost never formed from pronouns of another category (exceptions: yute, guarequena, etc.). Also the special pronoun is almost always used for the category Place(exceptions: pirakhan, tops, etc.). Category pronouns Cause in most cases are formed from pronouns of the category Subject, but there are also cases and formations from categories Way and Place. The possibilities of deriving interrogative pronouns of one category from interrogative pronouns of another can be seen in the figure.

Position in the offer

According to World atlas language structures, there are two common models of how interrogative phrases are arranged (interrogative word with

Among the numerous categories of pronouns, it is customary to single out two into a single group - this is interrogative and relative pronouns. In terms of spelling and sound, they are exactly the same, but they have a different meaning in the sentence - that is, they are homonyms in relation to each other.

How not to mix up the ranks? To do this, you need to understand what their essence is.

Relative pronouns - what is characteristic of them, and what do they serve?

Words from this category of pronouns can express the belonging of any objects, their number and the objects themselves. Pronouns such as "how many", "whom", "what", "who", "what", "which" and "whose" belong to the relative ones. Usually in speech they are used as connecting links. For example:

• He liked that closet better which the was white.
• I asked, which the bus goes to the subway.
• Nobody knew, whose it's a scarf.

Relative pronouns can be declined according to all the main features. However, we must remember that in the words "what", "how much" and "who" only the case changes - for example, "whom" or "what", "how many". But the rest of the pronouns are declined, including by gender and number. For example - “what”, “what”, “what”, or “whose”, “whose”, “whose”. In addition, for the word "which" there is also a short form "what".

Interrogative pronouns - the essence and main difference from the previous group

Interrogative pronouns are very similar to relative pronouns - it's not for nothing that they are so often confused. They sound and are written in exactly the same way - “who”, “what”, “how much”, “what”, and so on. The rules for their declension are similar - “what”, “who” and “how much” change only in accordance with cases, the rest of the words - according to numbers, genders and cases.

But there is one fundamental difference. An interrogative pronoun can only be used in sentences that ask a question. In either case, it emphasizes that the questioner does not know something - and refers to someone or something to find out.

Examples of interrogative pronouns would be:

• How kilograms of potatoes in this package?
• Whose is this coat?
• Who opened the window in the room?

Thus, it is very easy to distinguish between two groups of pronouns. For example, in the phrase "Who forgot the book on the windowsill?" we are dealing with an interrogative pronoun because we see a question. But in the phrase “I asked who forgot the book on the windowsill”, the word “who” will already be a relative pronoun - since the question is not asked, the sentence only tells that it was sounded.

Interrogative pronouns point to objects, signs and quantities unknown to the speaker. Interrogative pronouns include pronouns: who, what, which, which, which, whose, who, and how much. These pronouns are used in interrogative sentences.

• - BUT coy are you a year old? - “The sixth passed ...
• Well, dead!" - shouted the little one in a bass ...
• (N. A. Nekrasov)
• What Is the coming day preparing for us?

The pronouns who and what are usually demarcated in relation to the category, but in context there may be contradictions.

• - Well, Mr. Bazarov himself, in fact, what like this?
• (I. S. Turgenev)
• What is it a shadow or a person?

The pronouns what and what are distinguished stylistically. The pronoun what is stylistically neutral, in a sentence can be an agreed definition or a nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

• What kind do you like flowers?
• Which he ?

The pronoun which has - what, is used only in the role of the nominal part of the compound nominal predicate and is bookish in nature with increased evaluativeness.

• What are your plans?

Sometimes the pronouns what and what can be used in an exclamatory sentence. In this case, they act as .

• Which horror!
• What son! (= What a son!)

A pronoun that is used only in an interrogative sentence, which refers to the order of objects in a number series, and in turnover: “What time is it?” . With the help of the pronoun whose, a question is asked about the ownership of a person or object.

In relation to other parts of speech, interrogative pronouns are divided on , and .

Morphological features

Noun pronouns who and what do not have morphological and. If the pronoun who in the sentence is the subject - the predicate with it is put in the singular form. If the subject is the pronoun that, then the predicate is in the singular form. Noun pronouns who and what only change. Pronouns-adjectives which, which, whose change in gender, cases and numbers.

• m.
• and. R.
• cf. R.
• pl. h.

• which
• which
• which
• what kind

• which the
• which
• which
• which

What is the pronoun short form, therefore, does not change in cases, but changes in gender and number.

Syntactic signs

Interrogative pronouns can be different members of a sentence.

• Who knocking on my door
• With a thick shoulder bag...
• (S. Ya. Marshak)
• Sasha cried as the forest was cut down,
• She still feels sorry for him to tears.
• How there were curly birches !
• (N. A. Nekrasov)
• BUT what people?
• Whose the trill is heard in the spring forest?