PRONOUNS IN INDIRECT QUESTIONS.
Special caution needed here.
127. It is sometimes hard for the student to tell a relative from an interrogative pronoun. In the regular direct question the interrogative is easily recognized; so is the relative when an antecedent is close by. But compare the following in pairs:—
1.
(a) Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure.
(b) Well we knew who stood behind, though the earthwork hid them.
2.
(a) But what you gain in time is perhaps lost in power.
(b) But what had become of them they knew not.
3.
(a) These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil shows on his deed.
(b) And since that time I thought it not amiss To judge which were the best of all these three.
In sentences 1 (a), 2 (a) and 3 (a) the regular relative use is seen; who having the antecedent gentleman, what having the double use of pronoun and antecedent, which having the antecedent lines.
But in 1 (b), 2 (b), and 3 (b), there are two points of difference from the others considered: first, no antecedent is expressed, which would indicate that they are not relatives; second, a question is disguised in each sentence, although each sentence as a whole is declarative in form. Thus, 1 (b), if expanded, would be, "Who stood behind? We knew," etc., showing that who is plainly interrogative. So in 2 (b), what is interrogative, the full expression being, "But what had become of them? They knew not." Likewise with which in 3 (b).
How to decide.
In studying such sentences, (1) see whether there is an antecedent of who or which, and whether what = that + which (if so, it is a simple relative; if not, it is either an indefinite relative or an interrogative pronoun); (2) see if the pronoun introduces an indirect question (if it does, it is an interrogative; if not, it is an indefinite relative).
Another caution.
128. On the other hand, care must be taken to see whether the pronoun is the word that really asks the question in an interrogative sentence. Examine the following:—
1.
Sweet rose! whence is this hue
Which doth all hues excel?
—Drummond
2.
And then what wonders shall you do
Whose dawning beauty warms us so?
—Walker
3.
Is this a romance? Or is it a faithful picture of what has lately been in a neighboring land?—Macaulay
These are interrogative sentences, but in none of them does the pronoun ask the question. In the first, whence is the interrogative word, which has the antecedent hue. In the second, whose has the antecedent you, and asks no question. In the third, the question is asked by the verb.