Interrogative adjectives
What are interrogative adjectives? They are: whose, what, which, where, why and how. Interrogative adjectives modify or qualify nouns, and are used for interrogation, that is to say, we use them to ask questions about someone or something.
- Whose – indicates possession.
- What – is a general question word for general information relating to anything.
- Which – is used for specifying.
- Where – indicates direction.
- Why – general question word that seeks an explanation for something.
- How – indicates the manner as to how something or someone was done.
Whose: indicates a possessive
- Whose bag is that sitting in the corridor?
- I don’t know whose friend is sitting outside?
What: question word that seeks general information
- What is your name?
- What school do you go to?
Which: used for specifying
- Which pen would you prefer, the blue or the red one?
- Which is the smallest country in the world?
- Which option works best for you?
Where: used to indicate a direction
- Where do you go to college?
- Where is James? I haven’t seen him all day.
- Where does Anne live?
Why: general question word that seeks an explanation or reason
- Why don’t cats and dogs always get along?
- Why are you acting this way?
- Why is Peter coming so early?
How: seeks the manner regarding how something is done
- How does Maria know about the divorce?
- How does the political situation work in your country?
- How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?
Interrogative adjectives with context
- What are you up to1 Maria?
- I’m writing an email to someone.
- Who are you writing to? Is it someone special? A secret lover?
- Nope2, none of those crazy ideas. I’m writing an email to a company called, English Reservoir over3 some doubts I’m having with an English learning course that I bought from them a few days ago.
- What is English Reservoir?
- Oh4, English Reservoir is the company I use to learn English with.
- Wow5! Sounds so exciting. How6 do you like the course?
- I love it. Their courses are so wonderful. They make it fun to learn English grammar.
- How do they do that?
- Their courses teach English grammar, but with fun, animated tutorials that you can either7 stream online or download them onto your computer.
- So, why do you like them so much then?
- Their courses are so interactive, fun, and they teach English grammar with proper context and explanations. It’s basically the opposite of a boring grammar book.
- I love how it sounds! Where did you discover them anyway8?
- A friend recommended them to me, and now I follow their Facebook page also.
- Awesome9, I’ll check them out10.
Analysis
- Be up to: what someone or something is doing. Remember, be needs to be conjugated.
- Nope: is a more informal way of saying no, a more informal way to negate in English.
- ‘’An email to English Reservoir over’’: over is very similar to about and indicates the subject or thing.
- Oh: this word is an interjection. Interjections don’t really have any meaning. It’s a way to express oneself, sort of like a reaction.
- Wow!: this is another interjection. The word itself has no real meaning, only in this case to express excitement.
- How: an interrogative adjective indicating the manner as to how something was done.
- Either: this word lets you choose between two options. I’ll have either the Apple phone or the Android phone. Two options with either.
- Anyway: this is an adverb that native English speakers use very frequently. In the example above it just means in any case.
- Awesome: Something or someone can be awesome. A very popular word among most people.
- Check out: phrasal verb meaning examine. This phrasal verb can also be separated with the object going in between check and the preposition out.
See also
Adjectives:
Advanced grammar:
- Articles (a/an, the, zero article)
- Pronouns: subject, object and possessive
- Question tags
- English conditionals
- Interrogatives in English
- Determiners
- Phrasal verbs
- Prefixes and suffixes
- Reported and direct speech
- Numbers: cardinal, ordinal, and Roman numbers
- The verb: “get”
- ‘Get’ vs. ‘go’ and ‘got’ vs. ‘gotten’
- Copular verbs
- Cleft sentences
- Subjunctive in English
- Vulgar and taboo in English
- Ellipsis
- Split infinitive
- Emphasis with inversion
- Gerunds in English
- To + infinitive
- Bare infinitive
- British and American spelling