Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are who, whose, what, which. They are used to form special questions.

Who has the category of case. The case forms are who for the nominative case and whom for the objective case. The pronoun who refers to persons:

Who is there? Whom (Who) are you talking about?

What is used in questions about a thing or person or a kind of thing or person:

What do you know about him? What is your mother?

What is there on the table? What is he like?

Which refers to a person or thing when a choice has to be made:

Which of you can answer my question? Which of the books is yours?

Whose is used to ask who a particular thing belongs to:

Whose coat is this?

Interrogative pronouns can have the functions of subject, predicative, object or attribute:

Subject - Who is going with me? Wha t is there in the room?

Predicative - Who are you? What is this?

Object - Who (whom ) do you expect to see there?

What do you want to do?

Attribute - Whose sister is she? Which book would you like to take?

What kind of weather do you like?

RELATIVE PRONOUNS

Relative pronouns are who, whom, whose, which, and that. They refer back to a person or thing or a possessive relationship and links a relative (attributive) clause with the main one. The word they refer to is called antecedent. If the antecedent denotes a person, the pronoun who or that is used:

I know the guy who (that) you have mentioned.

If the antecedent denotes a thing, the pronoun which or that is used:

I have already read the magazine which (that) you gave me last week.

But only which is used if preceded by a preposition:

The house in which we lived was not far from the bank.

That can replace any relative pronoun except whose.

Whom can be used to link an attributive clause to the main clause when the relative pronoun is not the subject of the relative clause:

Is that the person who (whom) you invited?

Whom is used mainly in formal contexts. In spoken English it is often replaced by who or that:

We are happy to greet our friends whom we haven't seen so long.

They are the friends who (that) I told you about.

If a relative pronoun is an object of the clause it can be left out:

I know the people who (whom) you talk about.

I know the people you talk about.

Whose has possessive meaning. It refers to the subject of an attributive clause and cannot be left out:

We looked at the house whose roof was shining in the rain.

It is interesting to meet a writer whose books you like to read.

CONJUNCTIVE PRONOUNS

Conjunctive pronouns are who, what, whose, which. They refer back to a person or thing and link a subordinate (subject, object, predicative) clause to a main clause:

Subject clause - What I am going to do is none of your business.

Object clause - I don't know who told you this thing.

Predicative clause - The question is which of us is to do it.

In clauses conjunctive pronouns perform different functions. They can be used as subject, object, predicative, or attribute:

Subject - Do you know who did it?

Object - Give him what he wants.

Predicative - Nobody knows what he really is.

Attribute - It's not really important whose advice you follow.

The question is which way to take.

 

THE ADJECTIVE