Interrogatives
Interrogative pronouns and adverbs are important in forming questions in Punjabi. You can think of the interrogative form as the equivalent of the 5 Ws and H in English: who, what, where, when, why, and how. Let’s start with a simple SOV sentence:
ਮੈਂ ਹਰਮਨ ਹਾਂ | → I am Harman.
If we went by English rules and wanted to turn this sentence into a question, we could simply add a ? to the end of the previous sentence and get:
ਮੈਂ ਹਰਮਨ ਹਾਂ? → Am I Harman?
However, questions are formed differently in Punjabi than they are in English. To ask the question “Am I Harman?”, you would need to add the word ਕੀ (what) to the beginning of the sentence. So, the correct way to ask the question “Am I Harman?” would be the following:
ਕੀ ਮੈਂ ਹਰਮਨ ਹਾਂ? → Am I Harman?
The basic rule to take away from the lines above is that to convert a sentence into a question, like going from “this is a car” to “is this a car?”, simply add the word ਕੀ to the beginning of the sentence and change the ending punctuation from | to?
This is a book. → ਇਹ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਹੈ | → ਕੀ ਇਹ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਹੈ? → Is this a book?
What if we wanted to replace the object of the sentence with an interrogative pronoun like who, what, where, etc.? For example, what if we wanted to say “Who is this?” instead of “This is Harman”? First, we need to establish what the key interrogatives are:
| ਕੌਣ (kon) who | ਕੀ (ki) what | ਕਿਥੇ (kithe) where |
| ਕਦੋਂ (kadhon) when | ਕਿਉਂ (kyun) why | ਕਿਵੇਂ (kevain) how |
The spelling of the interrogative pronouns above will remain the same regardless of gender and number.
However, the spelling of the interrogative pronouns below will change depending on the gender and number of the relating object.
| ਕਿਹੜਾ (kehda) which | ਕਿਸ ਦਾ/ਕਿਹਦਾ (kis da) whose |
For example, if referring to a group of women, you would use ਕਿਹੜੀਆਂ or ਕਿਸ ਦੀਆਂ (both feminine plural) instead of ਕਿਹੜਾ or ਕਿਸ ਦਾ (both masculine singular), respectively.
Now, to form questions with interrogative pronouns, simply use the interrogative pronouns above in place of objects in the SOV structure. For example:
| Subject | Object | Verb | Meaning |
| ਇਹ | ਕੌਣ | ਹੈ | Who is this? |
| ਇਹ | ਕੀ | ਹੈ | What is this? |
| ਤੁਸੀਂ | ਕਿਥੇ | ਹੋ | Where are you? |
| ਤੁਸੀਂ | ਕਦੋਂ | ਆ ਰਹੇ ਹੋ | When are you coming? |
| ਉਹ | ਕਿਉਂ | ਹੱਸ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ | Why is he laughing? |
| ਮੈਂ | ਕਿਵੇਂ | ਆਇਆ ਸੀ | How did I come? |
| ਉਹ | ਕਿਹੜਾ | ਖਿਡੌਣਾ ਹੈ | Which toy is that? |
| ਇਹ | ਕਿਸ ਦਾ | ਬੱਚਾ ਹੈ | Whose child is this? |
*Remember that both ਇਹ and ਉਹ mean ‘he/she’, but only ਇਹ means ‘this’ and only ਉਹ means ‘that’.
You now know how to form questions. However, just like in English, some interrogative pronouns have specific befitting replies. For example, you could reply to the question “where is the book?” with the sentence “there is the book” or “the book is there”. In Punjabi, the following interrogative pronouns have a similar sound and equivalent replies:
| Question Word | Meaning | Response Word | Meaning |
| ਕਿਥੇ | where? | ਜਿਥੇ | where/there |
| ਕਦੋਂ | when? | ਜਦੋਂ | when/then |
| ਕਿਵੇਂ | how? | ਜਿਵੇਂ | how/as |
| ਕਿਹੜਾ | which? | ਜਿਹੜਾ | which/that |
| ਕਿਸ ਦਾ | whose? | ਜਿਸ ਦਾ | whose/that |
The easiest way to remember these response words is that they are the same as the question words except they begin with a ਜ (ja) instead of a ਕ (ka).