Interrogative Adjectives

Interrogative Adjectives

The word that asks which is a special one. It implies that you have a person or object in mind, or else it is used specifically with that person or object.

To fully understand how the German equivalent works you have to be aware that which modifies a noun, taking the place of the article. Since it takes the place of the article, it also takes over the function of the article as a determiner. That means it will show the

1. gender (masculine, feminine, neuter),
2. number (singular or plural), and
3. case

of the noun it modifies. Instead of one form, we have many, and you can start with the nominative:

welcher, welche, welches -pl. welche

Welcher is one of the determiners that we call in German a der-word. It is declined in all genders with the same endings as der, die, das and functions in a similar way.

The Definite Article

The Interrogative Adjective

As far as the word order is concerned, the interrogative is always in the first position. Therefore, you have to invert the verb-subject order (unless welcher is modifying the subject). Here are some examples showing how welcher is used to ask questions about nouns that are direct objects, subjects, or prepositional objects.