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In the sentence:

My philosophy professor demonstrated not only how to reason persuasively but also how to avoid logical fallacies.

What part of speech is the word how?

Nonnal
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Omar
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  • What part of speech in what sense? Do you want to know which meaning of the word "how" is being used here? – candied_orange Nov 29 '15 at 17:12
  • In How are you? how is an interrogative pronoun. In She explained how to complete the form, how is a relative pronoun. How is no different in this respect to who, which, and where. At least that's my understanding from when I last studied these things at school about 60 years ago! I doubt it has changed since. – WS2 Nov 29 '15 at 17:16
  • @WS2 What is the relative clause in your example? I can't see a noun that is being modified. – BillJ Nov 29 '15 at 17:35
  • @BillJ Relative clause - to complete the form, I think! – WS2 Nov 29 '15 at 17:53
  • This is something which the Dictionary can answer. how 1 haʊ / *adverb* 1. in what way or manner; by what means. "how does it work?" 2. used to ask about the condition or quality of something. "how was your holiday?" Here it is used a a conjunction to introduce the indirect Question. – Hugh Nov 29 '15 at 18:04
  • @Hugh So does that mean who, where and when are adverbs? What happened to interrogative pronouns? – WS2 Nov 29 '15 at 18:16
  • Who, whom, what, which, whose. these are pronouns. I think how, when, where, why, whether are usually called 'interrogatives.' They act as modifiers of the verb, or of the phrase, or adjectives; so that ought to signal adverb But all are used to introduce indirect questions, – Hugh Nov 29 '15 at 18:24
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    One response on ELU calls it a subordinating conjunction. But a full discussion is given here *A relative adverb or a conjunction or both?* http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/162576/a-relative-adverb-or-a-conjunction-or-both/162609#162609 – Hugh Nov 29 '15 at 18:46
  • You can call "how" interrogative pronoun (so in grammars) or simply question word. – rogermue Mar 29 '16 at 06:50

2 Answers2

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Both the hows there are adverbs that premodify the respective to-infinitive clauses. The first how premodifies to reason persuasively, and the second to avoid logical fallacies.

The fact that both how to reason persuasively and how to avoid logical fallacies are complements of the verb demonstrated doesn't change the part of speech of how at all, because how itself is not a complement of the verb. Only those clauses are.

JK2
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It is Adverb and the mood is interrogative

aravind kumar
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