User:Bukkia/sandboxVIII

Interrogative pronouns

Basic interrogative pronouns display two different forms: one for animate entities (who?) and one for inanimate entities (what?).

• what: sä
• who: xa

Both pronouns display only the singular number forms.

gö xa guŕähir süci?
whom did you give water to?

There are also other interrogative pronouns (and adverbs):

• säruɕ: where (static location and motion toward)
• säruk: why (cause)
• säcuho: when
• sämün: how much
• säŕap: how

There are also the following interrogative adjectives:

• sähə: which
• sämüni: how much / many

In earlier texts the interrogative adjective xahə can be found, which is placed exclusively before nouns referring to animate entities. Usage of this form is regarded as obsolete in the modern language.

Such adjectives, like the demonstrative adjectives, tend to be placed before their nouns and they are never used with the article.

Within an interrogative clause, pronouns usually are usually moved at the beginning of the sentence. Their syntactical position is regarded as extremely marked.

sämüninə çähinə xehīxir?
how many sheep do you have?

In addition, like other parts of the sentences, they can be introduced by prepositions:

gü xa sähiŕuhir?
whom are you talking about?