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 |