Interrogative adjectives are a type of adjective that interrogate or ask questions.
Adjectives are any words that modify or intensify nouns or subjects. They can refer to anything. It can be a person, animal, place, or thing.
However, there are different types of adjectives that make different modifications of nouns. Interrogative adjectives are one such part of adjectives.
Interrogative adjectives, as the name suggests, are used for asking questions. But let us look into its proper definition and understand how and where interrogative adjectives can be used.
What are Interrogative adjectives?
Interrogative adjectives are words used to modify a noun or the subject of a sentence and ask questions or interrogate regarding that noun. They indicate the meaning of the sentence from the questioning view.
In simple words, interrogative adjectives are specific words that question things. There are some common interrogative adjectives, such as what, which, where, why, whose, and how. These are the words that question the noun by accompanying them in a sentence. They mostly precede nouns.
Let us understand with some examples;
- Which book are you planning to buy?
- What colors are you using for dyeing your shirt?
- Whose flute is this?
We can see the interrogative adjectives are trying to question something about the noun or the subject of the sentence. They modify the noun and bring about a questioning point of view.
Difference between Interrogative adjectives and Interrogative pronouns
Just like interrogative adjectives, interrogative pronouns make use of the same words such as what, which, whose, etc. Since they both deal with nouns or subjects, people often confuse them to be the same. But that is incorrect. They may be the same words, but they have different usage.
Interrogative adjectives are words that interrogate the nouns in a sentence. They usually precede the noun or subject of the sentence. On the other hand, interrogative pronouns are words used in place of the noun. Interrogative pronouns also interrogate, but nouns do not follow pronouns.
- What accessories are you buying?
- Whose gadget are you using?
- Which bag is yours?
These are examples of interrogative adjectives. These adjectives do not stand alone. They modify the noun present in the sentence. Here, the nouns are specifically mentioned in the sentence.
- What are you buying?
- Who do you want to see?
- Which is yours?
These are examples of interrogative pronouns. They can stand alone without the noun because they are used in place of the noun and do not modify nouns or pronouns.
These are the differences between Interrogative adjectives and Interrogative pronouns. They seem the same, but they are not.
Other than the differences, it is also important to realize that different interrogative adjectives are used in different contexts. For instance, what and which cannot be interchanged. What is used when the options or nouns are unknown, while which is used when the options are known.
These are some points that will help make better and correct use of interrogative adjectives.
