Fill in the blank with a suitable pronoun:
_______ is the painting you lost years ago? [Intermediate]
Interrogative pronouns are used for asking questions. ‘Who’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’ and ‘which’ are interrogative pronouns. We use ‘who’ and ‘whom’ to ask questions about the people. ‘Who’ is used in the place of the subject of the question, like in “Who are they?”. While ‘whom’ is used in the place of the object of the sentence, like in “To whom is Dad talking?”. Since the given sentence doesn’t ask a question about the people, both ‘who’ and ‘whom’ are unsuitable. Thus options A and D are incorrect. On the other hand, we use ‘whose’ to ask to whom something belongs to. Since the given sentence doesn’t focus on the person the ‘painting’ belongs to, ‘whose’ is unsuitable. Therefore option B is incorrect. ‘Which’ is used to ask someone to name a particular thing, especially when there are two or more choices. Since the sentence focuses on naming the painting that was lost among various other painting, ‘which’ is the apt answer. Thus option C is correct.