Interrogative Pronouns

Indicate persons or non-persons or tlieir properties as unknown to the speaker and requiring to be named in the answer. Accordingly they are used to form special (or pronominal) questions.

This subclass of pronouns comprises who, whose, what, which, who­ever, whatever, whichever. Of these only the pronoun who has the category of case — the objective case is whom. However there is a strong tendency in colloquial English to use who instead of whom, especially with prepositions.

(E.g.Who did you get it from? Who have you been with? Who do you mean?)

Who, whose, whoever have personal reference, what, whatever have non-personal reference, and which may have both personal and non-personal reference.

The number of the persons implied by who can be derived from the context. Accordingly the predicate-verb may be in the singular or in the plural.

(E.g. Who has come? It’s my brother.

Who are to come today?)

When who is used as predicative, the link verb naturally agrees with the subject:

(E.g.Who is she? Who are you? Who were those people?)

The pronouns what may be both a noun-pronoun (что?) and an adjective-pronoun (каков? какой?). It has mostly a non-personal reference, as in: (E.g. What has happened? What is his name? What did you say? What are you looking at? What book are you reading?)

When what is used as subject it is, unlike who, always used with the predicate verb in the singular.

(E.g. What is there on the table? - Some books and papers).

However when what is used as a predicative the link verb agrees with the subject. (E.g. What are their names?)

What and who can both be used as predicatives in questions concerning persons. In this case they convey different meanings. Who-questions inquire about the person's name or parentage, while what-questions inquire about person’s occupation, profession, rank, etc. (E.g. “Who are you?” — “I am your sister’s son.” “Who is he?” – “He is Mr. Smith.” “What is she?”- “She is a painter”.)

Which is both a noun-pronoun and an adjective-pronoun. It may have either personal or non-personal reference. (E.g. Which of these men is your husband? Which colour do you prefer?)

Which always implies a choice among a certain limited group of persons or things, corresponding to the Russian который, какой из. The same meaning may be rendered by what, but what has always indefinite reference, whereas which has definite reference. Thus the following two questions. (E.g. Which books would you like to buy? What books would you like to buy?) differ in meaning, as the first implies that one is to choose from a given number of books and that one knows what kind of books they are. When answering this question one may either specify the books or just point to them saying “these”. The second sentence implies that one is to choose from an indefinite number of books, from books in general. This sentence corresponds to the Russian Какие книги Вы хотели бы купить? When answering this question, one simply has to specify them.

The pronouns whoever, whatever, whichever are noun-pronouns. Whoever has personal reference, whatever has non-personal reference, whichever may have either personal or non-personal one. When used in questions they express indignation or surprise.

(E.g. Whoever could have done it? Whichever was it? Whatever are you trying to do? Whatever is he talking about?)

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