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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). Most may be used in both direct (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, 嗎/吗 ma in Mandarin Chinese, mı/mi/mu/mü[1] in Turkish, pa in Ladin, か ka in Japanese, 까 kka in Korean, ko/kö[1] in Finnish, Kasi (or "Ka" for short) in Tumbuka, tat in Catalan, (да) ли (da) li in Serbo-Croatian and al and ote in Basque. "Is it true that..." and "... right?" 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 using formed questions in various languages, see Interrogative.

In English

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Main article: English interrogative words

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

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The interrogative words which, what and whose are interrogative determiners when specifying a noun or nominal phrase: The question Which farm is the county’s largest? specifies the noun farm as definite, while What farm? is indefinite. 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

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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

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

Yes–no questions

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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:

  • A finite inflection of be (e.g. Are you hungry?, Are you working from home today?)
  • A finite inflection of have (e.g. Have you any soup? Hasn’t she eaten lunch?)
  • A conjugation of do (e.g. Do you want fries?) - see Do-support § In questions
  • A conjugation of a modal verb (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

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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

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

날씨가

Nalssi-ga

Weather-NOM

어떻습니까?

eotteo-sseumni-kka?

be.how-POL5-INTERR

날씨가 어떻습니까?

Nalssi-ga eotteo-sseumni-kka?

Weather-NOM be.how-POL5-INTERR

"How's the weather?"

Chi

You

yaa-vch

do.what-CONC

jaahan

small

huuhed

child

bish

not

gej

that

bi

I

bod-jii-ne

think-PROG-NPAST

Chi yaa-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)

Australian Aboriginal languages

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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:

nyamba

IGNOR

nyamarni

2SG.ERG

manjku

skin.name

nyamba nyamarni manjku

IGNOR 2SG.ERG skin.name

What skin are you?

nyamba-mbili-kaji

IGNOR-LOC-through

mankiyi-mindi-ju

sit-1DU.INCL-do

nyamba-mbili-kaji mankiyi-mindi-ju

IGNOR-LOC-through sit-1DU.INCL-do

Where are we sitting?

Nyamba-rna

IGNOR-DAT

arrkuja-nga-nku-ju

scratch-1SG-REFL-do

Nyamba-rna arrkuja-nga-nku-ju

IGNOR-DAT scratch-1SG-REFL-do

Why are you scratching?

Nyamba-arndi-kaji

IGNOR-INST-through

nya-rriyi-rni

2SG-go.FUT-FOC

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 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)[4] and Verstraete (2018)[5] 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

Ngaani-ku

IGNOR-DAT

mi'athi-ngka=uurra-athungku

cry-PRS=2PL.NOM-1SG.ACC

Ngaani-ku mi'athi-ngka=uurra-athungku

IGNOR-DAT cry-PRS=2PL.NOM-1SG.ACC

Why are you all crying for me?

Adnominal / Determiner

yukurun

gear

ngaani

IGNOR

yitha-n=antyampa

leave-PST=1PL.EXCL.NOM

kuura

behind

yukurun ngaani yitha-n=antyampa kuura

gear IGNOR leave-PST=1PL.EXCL.NOM behind

We left some gear behind

Adverbial

Yupa

today

miintha

good

iluwa

3SG.NOM

ngaani

IGNOR

ngama-l

see-IMPERF

Yupa miintha iluwa ngaani ngama-l

today good 3SG.NOM IGNOR see-IMPERF

Perhaps she is better today.

(Verstraete 2018)

Esperanto

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In Esperanto, all interrogative pronouns have two syllables, and begin with the stressed syllable "ki-".

See also

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Interrogative word

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
An interrogative word, also known as a question word or wh-word, is a function word used to introduce questions and certain nominal clauses in language, typically seeking specific information about persons, things, places, times, reasons, or manners. Common examples in English include who, what, which, whom, whose, where, when, why, and how. These words are categorized primarily into three types: interrogative pronouns, which function nominally as subjects, objects, or complements (e.g., who as subject in "Who left the door open?" or what as object in "What did you see?"); interrogative determiners, which modify nouns (e.g., which in "Which book did you choose?"); and interrogative adverbs, which modify verbs or clauses to inquire about location, time, reason, or manner (e.g., where in "Where is the meeting?" or how in "How does it work?"). Interrogative pronouns like who, whom, whose, what, and which often replace nouns or noun phrases. In interrogative clauses, they mark the clause as dependent and nominal, distinguishing them from declarative or relative structures, and they are essential for forming constituent questions (wh-questions) as opposed to yes/no questions. Across languages, interrogative words exhibit universal patterns, such as morphological similarity to indefinite pronouns (e.g., English who related to someone), and they typically appear in focused positions within to elicit precise responses. Their syntactic placement varies—fronted in English but in situ in languages like Chinese—and they play a crucial role in semantics by denoting sets of possible answers. In indirect questions, such as "I asked what happened," they embed the query within a larger sentence without altering the word order of the main .

Fundamentals

Definition

Interrogative words, also referred to as question words or wh-words in many linguistic traditions, are lexical items or bound morphemes that serve to form content questions by specifying the type of being sought, such as the identity of entities, their , manner, or quantity. These elements replace or modify constituents in a sentence to indicate an inquiry rather than an assertion, enabling speakers to elicit precise responses beyond simple affirmation or negation. In contrast to declarative words and constructions, which convey statements of fact or belief, interrogative words trigger a oriented toward question formation, often involving inversion, movement, or special intonation patterns depending on the language's . Their syntactic function extends to within larger sentences, where they introduce indirect or embedded questions that function as complements or arguments, such as in clauses reporting uncertainty or knowledge (e.g., wondering about an event's cause). Basic interrogative functions include querying the identity of persons (e.g., equivalents of "who") or things (e.g., equivalents of "what"), location (e.g., equivalents of "where"), or manner (e.g., equivalents of "how"), thereby categorizing the semantic domain under investigation. From a historical linguistic perspective, interrogative words represent a universal present in all known human languages, underscoring their fundamental role in the expressive capabilities of across diverse typological profiles.

Etymology

The term "interrogative" derives from Late Latin interrogātīvus, an meaning "pertaining to questioning," formed from the interrogāre ("to ask" or "to question"), which combines the prefix inter- ("between") and rogāre ("to ask"). This entered English around 1500 as an denoting something used in or relating to questions, with the noun form appearing by the 1520s to refer specifically to words or moods expressing inquiry. Related grammatical terms central to interrogative words also stem from Latin roots adapted into English via Old French. "Pronoun," denoting a word standing in place of a , originates from Latin prōnōmen (prō- "for" or "in place of" + nōmen "name"), entering English in the mid-15th century through pronom. Similarly, "adverb," a modifier added to s or other elements, comes from Late Latin adverbi(um) (ad- "to" + verbum "word" or ""), adopted into English in the late via adverbe. These etymologies reflect the classical influence on English grammatical nomenclature during the . The stems of many interrogative words across trace to Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots like kʷo- or *kʷe-/kʷi-, which served as bases for interrogative and indefinite pronouns, evolving into forms such as English "who," "what," and "which." In Germanic branches, including English, these underwent sound changes like , shifting the labiovelar kʷ to hw (spelled "wh"). This PIE foundation underscores the shared interrogative heritage in languages from to Latin. By the , formal texts standardized " words" as terminology for these elements, replacing or supplementing earlier, less precise references to "question words" in 18th-century works; for instance, Alexander Bain's A Higher English Grammar (1877) explicitly discusses " pronouns" and adverbs in structured analyses. This shift aligned with growing emphasis on systematic in linguistic scholarship.

Classification

Interrogative words are primarily classified into three main structural types based on their grammatical roles: pronouns, which function independently as substitutes for noun phrases in subject or object positions; interrogative determiners, which modify nouns to specify or select from a set; and interrogative adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs to inquire about manner, time, place, or reason. A key distinction within these types lies in their status as pro-forms, which stand in for other elements in the sentence whose content is recoverable from context, versus full content words that carry primary lexical meaning; interrogative words typically serve as pro-forms to facilitate questioning without repeating full phrases. Additionally, interrogatives can be open, allowing for an unlimited range of responses (as in inquiries about unspecified entities), or closed, restricting responses to a predefined set (as in selections from known options). In terms of syntactic positions, interrogative words often undergo fronting in content questions, a process known as in languages that require the interrogative phrase to appear at the beginning of the , though this is not universal. Cross-linguistically, while these categories provide a general framework, classifications vary; for instance, some languages lack sharp distinctions between pronouns and determiners, and s may even function as verbs in predicate positions.

Usage in English

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns in English are words used to ask questions about people or things, standing alone in place of a noun without modifying it. The primary interrogative pronouns are who, which refers to persons in the subjective case; whom, the objective case form for persons; whose, indicating possession for persons or things; what, which inquires about things or actions; and which, which inquires about selection from alternatives for persons or things. These pronouns serve distinct syntactic roles in forming questions. As subjects, they initiate direct questions, such as "Who left the meeting early?" where who functions as the subject of the verb left. In object positions, whom or what appears after the auxiliary verb in inverted structures, as in "What did you see?" (what as direct object) or "Whom did she invite?" (whom as object of the verb invite). They also occur in embedded or indirect questions, where the word order remains declarative, for example, "I wonder who left the meeting early" or "Do you know what she invited?" In possessive contexts, whose modifies a following noun, as in "Whose keys are these?" English interrogative pronouns exhibit declension patterns reflecting case distinctions inherited from earlier forms of the language. Who serves as the nominative form for subjects, while whom is the accusative or dative form for objects, and whose acts as the genitive for possession; what remains invariant across cases but adapts to subject or object roles. However, whom is declining in modern usage, particularly in informal speech and writing, where who increasingly substitutes for it even in object positions, such as "Who did you see?" instead of "Whom did you see?" This shift reflects a broader simplification in English, with whom retained mainly in formal contexts like legal documents or traditional journalism. Unlike relative pronouns, which introduce dependent clauses and refer back to a specific antecedent noun (e.g., "The person who left early was tired," where who connects to the person), interrogative pronouns lack an antecedent and stand alone to seek new information in questions. This functional distinction applies to shared forms like who, whom, and whose, where context determines their interrogative role in standalone inquiries versus their relative role in clause linkage.

Interrogative Determiners

Interrogative determiners in English are words that modify s in questions to inquire about identity, choice, or possession, functioning within noun phrases to specify or limit the . The primary forms are what, which, and whose, each serving distinct semantic roles while integrating syntactically before the noun they modify. What functions as a non-specific interrogative , used when the question seeks information from an open or unlimited set of possibilities, such as in "What book are you reading?" where no prior options are implied. In contrast, which is specific or limited, presupposing a restricted choice among known alternatives, as in "Which book do you prefer?" when referring to a particular selection. Whose acts as a possessive interrogative , questioning ownership or relation, exemplified by "Whose keys are these?" to identify the possessor of the noun. These determiners agree in number with the following noun, appearing as what books or which books in plural contexts, ensuring grammatical harmony in the . Syntactically, interrogative determiners occupy the determiner slot in the structure, immediately preceding the without intervening adjectives in basic constructions, as in "What color is your car?" or "Which color do you like?" They also feature in alternative questions, particularly with which, to prompt selection between options, such as "Which one do you prefer, or ?" This usage highlights their role in eliciting preferences from delimited sets. In elliptical constructions, they may overlap with functions when the is omitted for brevity, like "Which do you want?" implying a previously mentioned , though their core role remains modification of a nominal head. Historically, the form what evolved from the Old English interrogative hwæt, which served as a versatile pronominal element in questions, often functioning adnominally to modify nouns much like a modern determiner, as in "Hwæt sind ðás búton þrymsetl heora Scyppendes" ("What are these but thrones of their Creator?"). Over time, through Middle English simplification of inflections and semantic broadening, hwæt transitioned into the universal non-specific determiner what in present-day English, retaining its interrogative core while adapting to the language's analytic structure.

Interrogative Adverbs

Interrogative adverbs in English are words used to form questions that inquire about circumstances such as manner, time, place, or reason. The primary interrogative adverbs are how, when, where, and why. These words function adverbially by modifying the verb or the entire clause to seek specific information beyond a simple yes or no response. In terms of syntactic behavior, interrogative adverbs typically occupy the initial position in direct questions, triggering subject-auxiliary inversion for formal structure, as in "Where are you going?" or "Why did she leave?". In embedded or indirect questions, they introduce adverbial clauses without inversion, such as "I don't know when the meeting starts" or "Tell me how you solved it.". This fronting distinguishes them from declarative sentences and aligns them with other wh-elements in English interrogative constructions. The adverb how extends to variations that specify degree, quantity, or extent. For instance, how much inquires about the quantity of uncountable nouns ("How much water is left?"), while how many targets countable nouns ("How many books do you have?"). Similarly, how far addresses ("How far is the airport from here?"), and other compounds like how long or how often probe duration or . These forms maintain the adverb's role in eliciting precise details. Why, denoting reason or cause, occasionally appears in idiomatic rhetorical questions where no genuine inquiry is intended, serving to express skepticism, frustration, or emphasis, as in "Why bother?" to imply futility. This usage leverages the adverb's interrogative form for persuasive or exclamatory effect without expecting an answer.

Yes–No Questions

In English, yes–no questions, also known as polar questions, are formed primarily through subject-auxiliary inversion, where the auxiliary verb precedes the subject in the main clause. For instance, the declarative sentence "You are coming" becomes the interrogative "Are you coming?" by inverting the subject "you" and the auxiliary "are." This inversion applies only to main clauses and requires the presence of an auxiliary verb, such as be, have, or a modal like will or can. When a main verb lacks an auxiliary, English employs to facilitate inversion, inserting the auxiliary "do," "does," or "did" marked for tense and person, which then inverts with the subject. Thus, "You like it" transforms into "Do you like it?" rather than an ungrammatical "*Like you it?" This mechanism, unique to certain analytic languages like English, ensures all yes–no questions follow a consistent auxiliary-subject order. Prosodically, yes–no questions in English typically feature rising intonation on the final stressed , contrasting with the falling intonation of declarative statements, which signals the intent even in the absence of inversion. For example, the statement "It's raining" ends with a falling pitch, while the question "Is it raining?" rises at the end to invite confirmation. This intonational cue is crucial in spoken English for distinguishing questions from statements. A subtype of yes–no questions includes tag questions, which append a short clause to a declarative statement to seek agreement or , often using an inverted auxiliary that matches the main clause's polarity. Examples include "You like it, don't you?" (positive statement with negative tag) or "You don't like it, do you?" (negative statement with positive tag), where the tag expects a yes or no response reinforcing the speaker's assumption. Unlike wh-questions, which involve fronting an interrogative word to query specific information, yes–no questions lack such fronted elements and instead focus on confirming or negating the polarity of the proposition, eliciting binary responses of affirmation or denial.

Forms with -ever

In English, interrogative words suffixed with -ever form a distinct set of compounds that extend the basic wh-forms (such as what, who, which, when, where, why, and how) by adding the element ever, which imparts connotations of universality, indefiniteness, or emphasis. The primary forms include whatever, whoever, whichever, whenever, wherever, however, and the rarer whyever. These compounds typically function as pronouns, determiners, or adverbs in clauses that introduce questions, relative constructions, or concessions, differing from plain wh-words by broadening the scope to imply "any" or "no matter which." The -ever forms serve multiple syntactic roles, including emphatic interrogatives, free relative clauses, and concessive expressions. In emphatic questions, they intensify surprise or disbelief, as in "Whatever do you mean?" where whatever underscores the unexpected nature of the response sought. As free relatives, they act as indefinite noun phrases equivalent to "the one who" or "that which," for example, "Whoever said that is wrong," treating the clause as a standalone subject without a specific antecedent. Concessive uses appear in conditional-like structures to indicate irrelevance or acceptance, such as "However you do it, it's fine," where however conveys manner without restriction, or "Whenever you arrive, we'll be ready," implying any time is acceptable. These functions often involve wh-ever clauses as adverbial subordinates, extending pragmatic inferences across discourse. Historically, these forms emerged in around the mid- through the of wh-pronouns or with ever, an meaning "always" or "at any time" derived from æfre. This combination originally emphasized universality in interrogatives, as seen in early texts like the anonymous poem Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), where whatever appears as an intensive variant of what. Over time, the suffix generalized to other wh-bases, evolving from emphatic interrogatives to versatile indefinites by the late , reflecting a shift toward broader concessive and relative uses in . The development aligns with models, where wh-ever clauses form a family of constructions hierarchically organized from schematic templates to fixed idioms. In contemporary English, while most -ever forms remain productive, whyever has declined significantly in usage, appearing rarely outside formal or archaic contexts since its first attestation in 1891 as "for whatever reason." Similarly, wherefore (an older variant akin to whyever) is now largely obsolete in everyday speech. Corpus analyses show higher frequencies for whatever and whoever in spoken and written registers, often in concessive roles, but overall, these compounds are less common than basic wh-forms due to their specialized indefinite semantics.

Cross-Linguistic Variations

Indo-European Languages

Interrogative words in trace their origins to shared Proto-Indo-European roots, particularly the stems *kʷo- and *kʷi-, which formed the basis for pronouns meaning "who" and "what." These stems evolved into distinct forms across branches, reflecting phonological shifts and morphological adaptations while preserving core functions. For instance, in Latin, the nominative forms qui (masculine/feminine) and quis (singular) derive directly from *kʷi-, while uses tis for both "who" and "what," and employs kaḥ for "who." In modern Romance languages, these roots manifest in simplified forms suited to analytic structures. French interrogative pronouns include qui ("who," subject) and quoi ("what," object), which show minimal compared to their ancestral paradigms. Similarly, Spanish uses qué ("what") and quién ("who") as pronouns, with interrogative adverbs like dónde ("where") incorporating the root to query location. Germanic languages exhibit parallel developments; German, for example, employs wer ("who") and was ("what") as pronouns, which remain largely uninflected in contemporary usage. Inflected Indo-European languages, particularly in the Slavic branch, retain more complex variations tied to gender, number, and case agreement. In Russian, the pronouns kto ("who," animate) and čto ("what," inanimate) decline across six cases—for example, kogo in the accusative/genitive for kto and čego in the genitive for čto—mirroring the case system's demands on nouns they replace. This preservation highlights how interrogatives adapt to syntactic roles in highly synthetic grammars. Over time, the evolution of interrogative words in shows a divergence between analytic and synthetic branches. Analytic languages in the Romance and Germanic families have largely lost case inflections for interrogatives, reducing them to invariant forms that rely on and prepositions for nuance, as seen in the fixed shapes of French qui or German was. In contrast, like Russian maintain robust inflectional paradigms for these pronouns, sustaining Proto-Indo-European morphological richness amid ongoing grammatical simplification elsewhere in the family.

Non-Indo-European Languages

In non-Indo-European languages, interrogative structures often diverge from fronting-based , favoring in-situ positioning, dedicated particles, or suffixes to mark questions. For instance, in , yes-no questions are formed by appending the particle ma to declarative statements, as in Nǐ qù ma? ("Are you going?"), without altering . Content questions employ wh-words like shénme ("what") and nǎlǐ ("where") that remain in their base positions, as in Nǐ shénme shíhou qù? ("When are you going?"), contrasting with movement in many Indo-European systems. Japanese similarly relies on particles for interrogation, using the sentence-final ka to convert statements into questions, such as Anata wa doko ni iku ka? ("Where are you going?"), where the wh-word doko ("where") or nani ("what") stays in situ. In Arabic, yes-no questions are initiated by particles like hal, as in Hal taf'alu dhālika? ("Do you do that?"), while content questions use forms such as man ("who") or mā ("what") without obligatory fronting, preserving the underlying SVO order. These particle systems highlight a reliance on invariant markers rather than morphological shifts or inversion. Agglutinative languages like Korean and Turkish integrate interrogativity through suffixes, adapting to tonal and honorific contexts. Korean wh-words such as mwe ("what") can combine with suffixes like -nya or -ni for politeness or specificity in questions, as in Mwe haeyo? ("What are you doing?"), where intonation and ending particles further signal query type. Turkish employs the clitic suffix -mi (vowel-harmonic variants: mı/mi/mu/mü) attached to the verb for yes-no questions, e.g., Gidiyor mu? ("Is he going?"), allowing flexible placement but maintaining SOV structure without wh-fronting for content questions like Ne yedin? ("What did you eat?"). In , such as those in the Kenyan group (e.g., Kikuyu, Kitharaka), interrogatives frequently feature wh-in-situ strategies except for subjects, which require movement to a focus position, as in Kikuyu Kamau onire nduĩ? ("What did Kamau see?") for objects versus subject-fronted forms. Some Bantu varieties exhibit verb-initial orders in questions for emphasis, diverging from declarative SVO patterns and underscoring tonal or prosodic cues over particles. This structural variety illustrates how non-Indo-European interrogatives prioritize affixal or positional markers to convey , adapting to typological features like and in-situ focus.

Australian Aboriginal Languages

Australian Aboriginal languages, numbering over 250 distinct traditional tongues, display remarkable diversity in interrogative formations, shaped by their polysynthetic nature and non-configurational word order. These languages frequently employ bound morphemes, clitics, and free-standing interrogative words that integrate seamlessly with verbs and case markings, contrasting with the independent wh-words common in many Indo-European languages. Interrogatives often appear clause-initially for focus, but the flexible syntax allows variable positioning without strict fronting requirements. In Warlpiri, a Pama-Nyungan language spoken in central Australia, interrogative words undergo wh-movement to a clause-initial position, accompanied by rising intonation, and agree in case with their syntactic roles. For instance, ngana-ngku ('who', ergative form with the clitic -ngku) questions agents, as in Ngana-ngku kurdu-ngku riirti-manu puuku? ('Which child read a book?'). Similarly, nyiya-ngku ('what/which', ergative) inquires about objects or subjects, e.g., Nyiya-ngku jarntu-ngku yarlkurnu kurdu? ('Which dog bit the child?'), while nyarrpara-rlu ('where', allative with -rlu) and nyajangu ('how many') probe location and quantity, as in Nyajangu=lu parnkaja jarntu? ('How many dogs ran?'). These forms highlight the language's agglutinative tendencies, where interrogatives cliticize to verbs or auxiliaries in complex predicates. Pitjantjatjara, another Western Desert Pama-Nyungan variety spoken around , uses similar case-inflected interrogatives that function as bound or semi-bound morphemes within nominal phrases. The word ngana ('who') takes ergative marking as nganalu, e.g., Nganalu kuka punnu? ('Who cooked the ?'), and comitative ngana-la ('with whom'). For 'what', nyaa serves as the base, often in locative contexts like nyaa-la ('what place?'), while 'where' is expressed by yaaltji and 'how' by yaaltji-yaaltji. Yes-no questions rely on intonation or particles rather than dedicated suffixes, but wh-interrogatives embed directly into the verb complex, reflecting the language's polysynthetic profile where morphemes fuse to convey tense, aspect, and . Across these languages, interrogative strategies vary regionally, with northern non-Pama-Nyungan tongues like Tiwi incorporating more verbal suffixes for content questions, but many share cliticization patterns that bind wh-elements to . This diversity is eroding due to , particularly in creoles such as Kriol, an English-lexified contact language spoken by approximately 7,500 first-language speakers as of the , with additional second-language speakers, in , which largely borrows English interrogatives like 'who', 'what', and 'where' while retaining Aboriginal substrate influences in syntax.

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