Interrogative pronouns

Kuka and mikä

The basic interrogative pronouns are kuka (who) and mikä (what, which). Their inflection is irregular. Singular forms of kuka except the nominative are based on the stem kene-, such as kenen (whose) and kenet (whom; a special accusative form), whereas plural stem is kei-. Historically, kuka is a mixture of two synonymous pronouns kuka and ken. The nominative, ken is now poetic, and so is the plural kutka.

Most forms of mikä are formed using just the stem mi-, e.g. the partitive is mitä. This pronoun has no separate plural forms, except for nominative plural.

The following table shows the inflected forms of kuka ∼ ken and mikä. The abessive,

comitative, and instructive forms would be just theoretical and have been omitted. Note that the plural forms of mikä are the same as the singular form, except for the nominative.

The short forms kellä, keltä, and kelle appear in spoken language and in poetry.

Sometimes the substandard forms keidän and keidät are used as genitive plural and accusative plural or kuka, respectively. They are analogous with the forms of plural personal pronouns: meidän, meidät etc.

In some dialects, the form ketä is used as the nominative singular, saying e.g. Ketä sen teki? instead of Kuka sen teki? This sounds odd to people who are not familiar with such usage.

When followed by the adverb tahansa, the pronoun kuka or mikä is not interrogative: kuka tahansa means “anyone” and mikä tahansa means “anything”. See The permissive addition tahansa, hyvänsä, or vain.

Special uses of mikä

Some forms of mikä have special meanings that correspond to separate interrogative words in English, e.g. missä (where), mistä (from where), mihin (where to), and miksi (why). They are also used as normal forms of the pronouns, e.g. missä kaupungissa (in which city).

The form mihin is mostly synonymous with the adverb minne, but mihin can be be seen as asking for more specific information. It is also used as an attribute, e.g. mihin kaupunkiin (into which city); minne cannot be used that way.

The word miksi is special, because it is normally understood as meaning “why”. Thus, the question Miksi hän muuttui? is probably understood as asking “Why did he change?” rather than “To what did the change?”, even though the latter is a possible interpretation, too.

Derivations of mikä

There are several commonly used interrogative adjectives and advebs derived from the mi- stem with word derivation suffixes, such as

• millainen (what kind of; historically a compound, short form of minkälainen, which is also in use)
• milloin (when)
• minne (where to; like mihin, but not used in contexts where an inflected form of mikä is needed, e.g. mihin kaupunkiin? “to what town?”)
• miten (how)

The dual kumpi

There is a special dual interrogative pronoun: kumpi is used instead of kuka or mikä whenever a choice between just two alternatives is implied. For example, Kumpi teki sen? means “Which one of the two did it?” When asking about two things or persons, the use of kumpi is obligatory in the sense that asking Kuka heistä teki sen? implies that the group referred to has more than two members. Other dual pronouns jompikumpi, kumpikin, and ei kumpikaan are obligatory in the same sense.

The inflection of kumpi follows the rules for comparatives of adjectuves. This means that the stems of kumpi are kumpa- and kumma- in singular, kumpi- and kummi- in plural. For example, the genitive is kumman, as in Kumman valitset? (Which one of the two do you choose?).

Appending the word-like suffix kin changes the meaning of kumpi: kumpikin means “each one of the two”. The suffix kaan is used in negative contexts, e.g. Ei kumpikaan tiennyt sitä (Neither of the two knew it),

When followed by the adverb tahansa or hyvänsä, the pronoun kumpi is not interrogative but means “either of the two”, “whichever of the two”.