Wh-questions

Wh-question (Adger and Ramchand 2005:(12))

Cò	a	bha	sgith?
who	C.REL	be.PST	tired
'Who was tired?'

Equative wh-question when the subject is a wh-element ((Adger and Ramchand 2005:(15))

Cò	an	tidsear?
who	the	teacher
'Who is the teacher?'

Pied-piped wh-question (Adger and Ramchand 2005:(21))

Dè	an	seòrsa	tidsear	a	tha	annad?
what	the	sort	teacher	C.REL	is	in + you
'What sort of teacher are you?'

Fronted wh-phrases are always nominative marked (Adger and Ramchand 2005:(31)).

Dè	a'	chraobh	a	bha	thu	a'geàrradh?
which	the	tree.NOM	C.REL	be.PST	you	cutting
'Which tree were you cutting?'

The sentence becomes ungrammatical with genietive marking on the noun inside the wh-phrase (Adger and Ramchand 2005:(31)),

Dè	a'	chraobhe	a	bha	thu	a'geàrradh?
which	the	tree.GEN	C.REL	be.PST	you	cutting
'Which tree were you cutting?'

although the object noun is marked with genitive in declaratives (Adger and Ramchand 2005:(30))

Bha	thu	a'geàrradh	na	craoibhe.
be.PST	you	cutting	the	tree.GEN
'You were cutting the tree.'