The indirect y/n question

Let us now illustrate this for an indirect yes/no question:

Він питає, чи ми будемо вдома сьогодні.

Не asks if/whether we will be at home today.

Він спитав, чи ми будемо вдома сьогодні,

Не asked if/whether we would be at home today.

Він питає, чи ми були вдома вчора.

Не asks if/whether we were at home yesterday.

Він спитав, чи ми були вдома вчора.

Не asked if/whether we had been at home yesterday.

The indirect question, consequently, includes the characteristic interrogative particle of the direct y/n question, namely чи placed at the very beginning of the sentence. An 'optative, wondering, what-if sense can be conveyed using the infinitive, for example,

Чи не поїхати б нам туди човном?

What if we were to go there by boat?

This (the negation and modal particle б increase the speculation) could be incorporated as expected into an indirect structure, i.e.

Він спитав, чи не поїхати б вам туди човном?

Не asked, what if you were to go there by boat?

Note how the subject of the infinitive is conveyed by the dative case.

Other indirect questions

The same will go for all other indirect questions. Here are a few examples of such sentences:

Я спитав їх, з ким вона вчилася.

І asked them whom she studied with. (lit. 'with whom')

Чи вона тобі сказала, що станеться?

Did she tell you what would happen?

Чи ти знаєш ту людину, чиєю ручкою я пишу?

Do you know the person whose pen I am writing with? (or better, in a relative clause, as here: якої ручкою lit. 'with the pen of whom' for чиєю ручкою)

Вона пояснила мені, чому вона хотіла відпочити в Криму.

She told me why she wanted to take a break in the Crimea.

Я не можу не питати, де Ви живете.

І can't help asking where you live.

Я не міг не питати, де вона раніше жила.

І couldn't help asking where she used to live.

He можна не питати, звідки вони сьогодні приїхали.

One can't but ask where they travelled from today.

Я хотіла питати, як довго Ти будеш у нас.

І wanted to ask how long you would be with ts.

Скажіть, скільки часу будете в крамниці.

Tell me how long you'll be at the store.

and so on, or тощо as one so often sees after a list in Ukrainian.

Adjectival or relative clauses: який, що

First, the relative який declines as an adjective and agrees in gender and number with the noun phrase to which it refers and takes the case required by the syntax of its own, relative, clause:

Чи Ви знаєте дівчину, з якою вони розмовляли.

Do you know the girl they were talking with?

(Якою is feminine and singular because it refers to the feminine singular noun дівчину, but is instrumental rather than the accusative дівчину because it is governed by the preposition з 'with', which requires the instrumental.)

Чи ти бачиш того хлопця, який дві години тому стояв біля церкви?

Can you see that boy, who a couple of hours ago was standing near the church? (Який is masculine and singular, because of хлопця, but nominative because it is the subject of стояв.)

Ось там той літній чоловік, якого дружина недавно відійшла.

There's that elderly man whose wife passed away recently.

(Here який goes into the genitive to convey 'whose', and is masculine and singular because it refers to літній чоловік)

Now for some examples of що, which itself never changes:

Ідемо гірським хребтом, що зветься Чорногора, а що його найвищою горою є Говерля.

We walk along a mountain ridge which is called Chornohora and whose highest point is Hoverlja.

This sentence illustrates the two cardinal uses of relative що, first, that it can be used to translate 'who', 'which' as subject - nominative case, any gender, either number - of the relative clause (as in що зветься), and, second, that it takes the appropriate form of the third-person pronoun after it to convey whatever other form - case, number, gender - might be needed; in other words, we could have якого here as the alternative to що його.

Some more examples:

Річка Полтва, що випливає з ліску (...) на межі Львова, перепливає через ціле місто, але зверху вона замурована.

The river Poltva, which flows out from a little wood on the edge of L'viv, flows through the whole city, but is built over.

(Here що is used for a nominative singular feminine.)

Зразу же їдемо на так званий Високий Замок, - це гора, що на ній стояв колись княжий замок.

And first we drive to what is known as the 'High Castle' - the hill on which the royal castle once stood.

(На ній reflects the gender of the referent, гора, and the prepositional phrase required in the relative clause.)

Third, one may refer to котрий, which declines exactly as який, i.e. as an adjective, but which is rarely encountered these days in relative clauses. One might just be tempted to use it where the emphasis is on identifying a particu­lar entity (rather than a more general or qualitative identification), or in a Ukrainian heavily influenced by Russian. Thus, to illustrate the former:

З усіх, що там були, ось той, котрий мені більше подобається.

Of all who were there, there's the one whom I most like.

Це третій, котрого я б вибрав.

It's the third one whom I would choose.

And even there який might seem better, particularly in the first. Perhaps one might hypothesize that котрий would be used as a relative in environments where one would expect it as an interrogative, as in Вже та година, о котрій батьки мають приїхати 'It's already the hour at which my parents are due to arrive' (= Котра година? 'What's the time?', О котрій? 'At what time?'), and linking to the last example above, Котрий з них? 'Which of them?'