Interrogative pronouns

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Interrogative pronouns: who, what, which, what kind, whose

To ask a real question, one that cannot be answered with “yes” or “no” (who?, what?, which?), you need a special set of words. These are the interrogative pronouns, the question words: ko (“who”), šta (“what”), koji (“which”), kakav (“what kind, what … like”), čiji (“whose”), and for size and amount koliki / koliko (“how big” / “how much, how many”). This lesson is about the words themselves; how to build whole questions around them comes in the lesson “Wh-questions”.

English has a word for each of these meanings, so the list is quickly learned. There are two traps, though. First, English what does several jobs (“What is this?”, “What bus goes to the centre?”, “What is the city like?”); Serbian gives each job its own word: šta for a thing, koji for a choice, kakav for a quality. Second, ko and šta make the words around them masculine or neuter singular, even when you are asking about a woman or about a crowd. One at a time.

Along the way we touch lightly on how ko and šta decline, that is, change their form by case (koga, kome, čega). The cases get their own lessons, so here you only get a taste.

ko and šta: who and what

We start with the two most frequent; you have already asked ko? and šta? about the subject in “Nominative forms”. ko asks about a person, šta about a thing or an action. ko has a pure, short o, as in Spanish or Italian, not the “oh-oo” glide of English go; šta is one syllable, “shta”.

Now the trap. When ko asks who does something or who is hungry, tired and so on, the verb and any adjective that goes with it are masculine singular, even if you are plainly asking about a woman, or about a whole crowd. With šta they are neuter singular.

Half of this you know from English, where “who” is singular too: “Who is hungry?”, even when you expect a room full of hands. The other half is new, because English verbs and adjectives show no gender. Serbian ones do: the -o of došao (a past form of “come”, taught later) marks the masculine, and a woman says of herself došla. So: with ko, masculine; with šta, neuter; never došla or došli, even when the answer will obviously be a woman, or several people. A “who is …?” question about someone named works differently: in Ko ste vi? (“Who are you?”) the verb agrees with vi, because here ko asks who you are, not who does something.

A few more high-frequency questions, to get ko and šta into your mouth:

The colloquial Šta ima?, literally “what is there?”, is the Serbian “What’s up?”. The usual answers are Ništa (“nothing”) or Sve po starom (“same as ever”, literally “everything the old way”).

koji: which one

koji (“KO-yee”) does not ask “who in general” but which one, out of a set that is already known. Unlike ko, it agrees with its noun in gender and number, like any adjective: koji (masculine), koja (feminine), koje (neuter).

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Interrogative pronouns: who, what, which, what kind, whose

Question words for questions that want a specific thing as the answer, not “yes” or “no”.

ko and šta

Ko je to?, Šta je ovo?, Šta piješ? (what are you drinking?), Ko zna? (who knows?), Šta radiš? (what are you doing?). Fixed agreement: Ko je došao? (who has come? even if three women came), Ko je gladan? (who is hungry?), Šta se desilo? (what happened?). But Ko ste vi? (who are you?): the verb follows vi. Šta ima? = what's up?; answer Ništa (nothing) or Sve po starom (same as ever).

koji or kakav: English “what” split in two

Koji grad? = which of the cities; Kakav grad? = what is the city like. Exclamations: Kakav dan! (what a day!), Kakva šteta! (what a pity!).

čiji: whose

čiji / čija / čije agrees with the thing asked about: Čiji je ovo auto? (whose car is this?), Čija je ovo kafa? (whose coffee?), Čije su ovo knjige? (whose books are these?). By case like an adjective: Čiju knjigu čitaš? (whose book are you reading?).

koliki and koliko

koliki / kolika / koliko = how big: Kolika je soba? (how big is the room?). Frozen koliko = how much / how many: Koliko košta? (how much does it cost?), Koliko ljudi dolazi? (how many people are coming?).

ko and šta by case

Koga vidiš? (who do you see?). Preposition first, never at the end: S kim ideš? (who are you going with?). Just recognise the other forms for now.

Answers

The short answer keeps the case of the question. Any question word works alone as a check-back: Ko?, Šta?, Čije?; more polite: Molim? (pardon?).