Introduction to Interrogative Pronouns
We have so far learnt Personal Pronouns and Demonstrative Pronouns in Pali. In Unit 11 we studied about the first & second person Personal Pronouns – amha and tumha, and the third person Personal Pronoun ‘ta’ (so, sā, taṃ) in Unit 12. We saw that pronoun ‘ta’ can also be used as a Demonstrative Pronoun.
i.e. so = he, that;
sā = she, that;
taṃ = it, that.
The other pronouns like ‘eta’, ‘ima’, ‘amu’ etc can also be used both as Personal and Demonstrative Pronouns.
In this Unit, we will learn in detail about the Interrogative Pronouns in Pali. The interrogative pronoun is called as ‘ka’ and, as the name suggests, its declined forms are used in questions.
Let us study the declension of pronoun ‘ka’ and translate some simple Pali sentences containing its declined forms.