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WORD GRAMMAR
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Verb
- Conjugation in indicative
- Person and number
- Tenses
- Voice
- Mood
- Verb categories
- Valency
- Semantic categories of verbs
- Finite / non-finite verb forms
- Noun
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Article
- Pronoun
- Preposition
- Conjunction
- Particle
- Interjection
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Verb
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SENTENCE GRAMMAR
- Clause types
- Complex clauses
- Constituents of a sentence
- Sentence structure
- Word order in a sentence
- Negation
The interrogative pronouns wer / was
HA15
Pronouns wer und was can be used as interrogative pronouns. They are inflected as follows.
person
|
non-person
|
|
nominative |
wer
|
was
|
genitive |
wessen
|
wessen
|
dative |
wem
|
(was)
|
accusative |
wen
|
was
|
They can only function as pronouns and not as articles. The pronoun wer refers only to a person, while was to anything but a person. As shown in the table below, wer and was are not determined by gender or number.
Examples | |
Wer will mitkommen? |
Was bist du von Beruf? |
Wem hat das Essen nicht geschmeckt? | Was hast du ihm gesagt? |
Wen treffen wie heute Abend? | Wessen erinnert er sich noch? |
person | non-person |
In the table above, the dative case form of was is placed within brackets because it is only used in everyday language.
Examples | |
Was stimmst du nicht zu? |
Dieser Meinung. |
Was entsprechen die Vorschläge der Bank? | Unseren Bedürfnissen. |
question | response in dative |
Genitive forms can be used as attributive adjectives before a noun and indicate the possessor.
Examples | |
Wessen Idee war das? | Das war meine Idee. |
Wessen erstgeborenes Kind wird heute 18? | Pauls Kind. |
interrogative pronoun in the genitive case | indication of the possessor |