Interrogative Adjectives

Adjectives are those words which describe nouns or pronouns. Interrogative Adjectives are one among the seven types of Adjectives. Interrogative Adjectives are words which qualify or modify nouns and indicate questions. Interrogative Adjectives help to seek answers to queries of people.

Unlike other Adjectives, there are only few interrogative Adjectives. They are as follows:

Now, let us understand Interrogative Adjectives more clearly with help of examples:

Adjective Use Examples

What

used to ask questions about animals and non-living things.
We use it to get some specific answer.
  • What did you buy for yourself?
  • What gift will he give me?
  • What kind of behavior is that?
  • What a disgusting attitude he has.
  • What a beautiful color this leaf has.
  • What are you complaining about?
  • What reward will they give us?
  • What song is your sister listening to?
  • What are we going to watch?

Whose

used to ask questions about people
  • Whose house are you planning to rob?
  • Whose plan was that?
  • Whose shoes are these?
  • Whose performance is tomorrow?
  • Whose house is this?
  • Whose accident were you talking about?
  • Whose bag will I carry?
  • Whose texts are we referring to?
  • Whose dress is the best?

How

used to ask questions to know the manner of how actions take place
  • How many students played football?
  • How come you never heard about this singer?
  • How many people were airlifted?
  • How many people went to the concert?
  • How on earth this riot took place?
  • How come you never remembered me?
  • How many types of mushrooms are available here?
  • How many protesters are there?
  • How many children are there in school?

Where

used to ask questions about place.
  • Where are you going?
  • Where is he living?
  • Where can she find them?
  • Where do we start?
  • Where are all the books?
  • Where is she learning dance?
  • Where are we supposed to finish it?
  • Where did the dog disappear?
  • Where did the spider go?

Why

used to ask reason behind occurrence of actions
  • Why did you lie?
  • Why are they crying?
  • Why did she laugh?
  • Why did the teacher scold me?
  • Why did we not think of this before?
  • Why did they select us?
  • Why did she quickly?
  • Why did my mother give you the necklace?
  • Why did he kill himself?

Always Remember

  1. Interrogative Adjectives and Interrogative Pronouns have almost same set of words so we should understand their use properly. Both are similar but unlike Interrogative Pronouns Interrogative Adjectives cannot stand independently.

    Interrogative Adjectives are used to support nouns/pronouns whereas Interrogative Pronouns are used to replace nouns.

    We can differentiate between Interrogative Adjectives and Interrogative Pronouns by seeing what follows them. Interrogative Adjectives are followed by nouns while verbs are seen to be following Interrogative Pronouns.

    For Example
    What are you cleaning? (used as Interrogative Pronoun, followed by verb)
    What thing are you cleaning? (used as Interrogative Adjective, followed by noun)

  2. Two Interrogative Adjectives What and Which are very similar. However, there is a difference. What is used when we are not aware of the available options whereas Which is used when we have options available to select from.

    For example
    What movie did you go to see? (We don’t know the options)
    Which movie did you watch – Terminator or Snow White?