Editing Interrogative word (section)

{{Short description|Words that indicate a question is being asked, as a grammatical category}}
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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 (pronoun)|who]], whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''.  They are sometimes called '''wh-words''', because in [[English language|English]] most of them start with ''[[wh (digraph)|wh-]]'' (compare [[Five Ws]]). Most may be used in both direct (''Where is he going?'') and in [[indirect question]]s (''I wonder where he is going''). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used as [[relative pronoun]]s in certain [[relative clause]]s (''The country where he was born'') and certain [[adverb clause]]s (''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 language|French]], ли ''li'' in [[Russian language|Russian]], ''czy'' in [[Polish language|Polish]], чи ''chy in'' [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], ''ĉu'' in [[Esperanto]], ''āyā'' آیا in [[Persian language|Persian]], কি ''ki'' in [[Bengali language|Bengali]], {{linktext|lang=zh-hant|嗎}}/{{linktext|lang=zh-hans|吗}} ''ma'' in [[Standard Mandarin|Mandarin Chinese]], ''{{lang|tr|mı}}''/''{{lang|tr|mi}}''/{{lang|tr|mu}}''/''{{lang|tr|mü}}<ref name="vHarmony">''Finnish and Turkish have vowel harmony, see more [[Vowel harmony|here]]</ref> in [[Turkish language|Turkish]], ''pa'' in [[Ladin language|Ladin]], {{lang|ja|か}} ''ka'' in [[Japanese language|Japanese]], {{lang|ko|까}} ''kka'' in [[Korean language|Korean]], ''ko/kö''<ref name="vHarmony" /> in Finnish, ''tat'' in [[Catalan language|Catalan]], (да) ли ''(da) li'' in [[Serbo-Croatian]] and {{lang|eu|al}} and {{lang|eu|ote}} [[Basque grammar|in Basque]]. ''"Is it true that..."'' and ''"... right?"'' would be a similar construct in English. Such [[particle (grammar)|particle]]s contrast with other interrogative words, which form what are called [[wh-question|''wh''-question]]s rather than yes–no questions.

For more information about the grammatical rules for using formed questions in various languages, see [[Interrogative]].