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The English interrogative words (also known as "wh words" or "wh forms") are words in English with a central role in forming interrogative phrases and clauses and in asking questions. The main members associated with open-ended questions are how , what , when , where , which , who , whom , whose , and why , all of which also have -ever forms (e ...
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).
Interrogative sentences are generally divided between yes–no questions, which ask whether or not something is the case (and invite an answer of the yes/no type), and wh-questions, which specify the information being asked about using a word like which, who, how, etc.
The declarative sentence is the most common kind of sentence in language, in most situations, and in a way can be considered the default function of a sentence. What this means essentially is that when a language modifies a sentence in order to form a question or give a command, the base form will always be the declarative.
If the verb is in the present perfect, for example, the tag question uses has or have; if the verb is in a present progressive form, the tag is formed with am, are, is; if the verb is in a tense which does not normally use an auxiliary, like the present simple, the auxiliary is taken from the emphatic do form; and if the sentence has a modal ...
Different languages may use different mechanisms to distinguish polar ("yes-no") questions from declarative statements (in addition to the question mark). English is one of a small number of languages which use word order. Another example is French:
The word there in such sentences has sometimes been analyzed as an adverb, or as a dummy predicate, rather than as a pronoun. [17] However, its identification as a pronoun is most consistent with its behavior in inverted sentences and question tags as described above.
A referent (/ ˈ r ɛ f ə r ə n t / REF-ər-ənt) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers.For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.