What part of speech is who?

Answer 1

The word 'who' is a pronoun.

The pronoun 'who' is both a relative pronoun and an interrogative pronoun, depending on use.

• The pronoun 'who' is a subject pronoun, a word that take the place of a noun as the subject of a sentence or a clause.
• The relative pronoun 'who' introduces a relative clause (a group of words with a subject and a verb but is not a complete sentence) giving information about its antecedent.
• The interrogative pronoun 'who' introduces a question. The antecedent of the interrogative is normally the noun or pronoun that answers the question.

Examples:

• The person who called will call back later. (relative pronoun, introduces the relative clause)
• Who would like some ice cream? (interrogative pronoun, introduces a question)