Which is more natural? "Whose is that car?" or "Whose car is that?"

Question

1. Whose is that car?
2. Whose car is that?

Which of the two is the most natural way of saying it? I think #2 but may I be mistaken?

Answer 1

Both are technically grammatical; I interpret them as different elisions of "Whose car is that car?" (which is so redundant as to be unnatural itself).

Between the two options, I find "Whose car is that?" flows significantly better. This lines up entirely with usage as searching in COCA for . whose is returns only two true matches while there are a lot of matches for the other word order. While "Whose is" is rarely followed by a noun phrase, it is very commonly followed by this, that, or it ("Whose is this?"), without a noun phrase.

Answer 2

As a native English speaker, I can't decide which form of this question sounds more natural - both seem equally normal.

Neither phrase will sound odd or mark one out as a non-native speaker.

As a parent to teenagers, "Whose are these shoes?", "whose bag is this?", etc. all come equally easy to me.

Answer 3

The second form is preferred, but there's enough leeway that the first example is not wrong grammatically.

Overanalysis:

The term "whose is" is an interrogative pronoun.

The term "whose car" is an interrogative adjective.

See http://www.myenglishteacher.net/adjectiveclauseswithwhose.html (near the bottom) for an example, there are a few webpages that cover this but it's difficult to both construct a suitable search term and find an example (quickly).

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1. Try replacing the word "whose" with the owner's name.

Whose is that car?

Thus it becomes: "Tom's is that car.", or more properly (to demonstrate the preference) "Tom's is.", which is shortened to "Tom's.".

Whose car is that?

Thus it becomes: "Tom's car is that.", or more properly (to demonstrate the preference) "Tom's car.", which is shortened to "Tom's.".

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2. See the comment to the question, from @Fumblefingers:

Whose is that wife?

Thus it becomes: "Tom's is that wife.", or more properly (to demonstrate the preference) "Tom's is.", which is shortened to "Tom's.".

Whose wife is that?

Thus it becomes: "Tom's wife is that.", or more properly (to demonstrate the preference) "Tom's wife.", which is shortened to "Tom's.".

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3. A further example of shortening to derive the preferred form:

Whose is that car? - "Whose is?"

Tom's is, or more simply Tom's.

Whose car is that? - "Whose car?"

Tom's car, or more simply Tom's.

So if you say "Whose is" you still must introduce the object (or manually gesture).

If you simply say "Whose car?" you neither need say more nor gesture at either the vehicle nor a specific person (to direct the question to a specific vehicle or specific person, assuming both are understood).

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4. We can also lengthen the sentence to determine which is more awkward:

Whose is that car that is blue?

• "Whose is (that) blue (car)?", see that now you wouldn't even want to have "is" or "is that" in the sentence.

Tom's is, or more simply Tom's.

Whose car is that?, which would become: "Who's blue car is that?" (or more awkwardly "Whose car is that which is blue?").

• "Whose blue car?"

-- Thus, the second form is preferred.

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Let's get the wife doing something, about which to further the inquiry:

Whose is that wife dancing? or Whose is that dancing wife?

Whose wife dancing is that? or Whose dancing wife is that?

Notice how the first form is slightly more derogatory, if you are speaking to the owner of the car about his poor parking or choice of color you might get away with saying it that way (and maybe not).

Notice how the second form is less derogatory, it might be neutral or even complimentary (it would depend upon what she was doing, and how well or in what state).

You would probably want to be cautious whom you asked, and how you asked, about someone's wife; but the same might be said for some people's vehicle.