There are many spelling mistakes that we make and, many times, we do not recognize that these deviations happen because we have little mastery of grammatical rules. Knowing the grammar rules is not just for us to do morphosyntactic analysis, which is one of the most complex actions in language analysis, is also a source of knowledge that guarantees us greater security in everyday writing.
There are many doubts about the employment of whys, for example, because it is a word that is enunciated in the same way, even when used for different purposes in our speech. This also happens a lot with the proper use of what and what.
O word what, as in the whys variation, there is more than one morphological function in the Portuguese language. Your grammar classes can be: pronoun, conjunction, noun, adverb, interjection, preposition and expletive particle.
Keeping these functions in mind, we will, going through each grammatical class that the word occupies, indicate when the word what gets accent and when she doesn't.
What does not receive accent:
→ Pronouns adjectives and noun pronouns:
It does not receive an accent when occupying the role of noun pronoun and adjective pronoun.
Examples:
- adjective pronoun: "What time is it?"; “What a cool initiative!”
- noun pronoun: "What did they do to you?”; "What happened around here today?"
→ Adverb
It does not receive an accent when it is accompanied by an adjective or adverb.
Examples:
"What an afternoon!"
"How beautiful these pictures."
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
→ expletive particle
*Expletive particle is one that has the function of highlighting some action in the sentence; if the particle is removed, nothing will be changed in the direction.
In cases where the word what performs the function of highlighting, it should not be accentuated.
Example:
"I'm almost not there for the wedding."
→ Preposition
Does not receive accent when linking two verbs of a verbal phrase that has the verb as an auxiliary to have.
Example:
"I have to get there early on Enem's day."
→ Coordinating conjunction
No accent is given when linking syntactically independent clauses.
Examples:
"The branches sway that sway."
"Come back early as it could get dangerous after the game."
What receive accent:
→ End of sentence ←
The word is accented when it is immediately before a question, final or exclamation mark.
Examples:
"She needs you today for what?"
"You said what?"
"They're talking I don't know what."
→ Substantive
The word is accented when it is occupying the name function in the sentence.
Examples:
"There's something mysterious about this book."
“I found 15 whats in your first paragraph. Review proper use.”
→ Interjection
The word receives accent when it indicates feeling or amazement.
Examples:
"What? She came?"
"What! You got it?"
by Mariana Pacheco
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PACHECO, Mariana do Carmo. "What or what?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/que-ou-que.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
