[Tlhingan-hol] KLBC: "Which" and uses of question words

[David Holt]

ghItlh qunnoQ HoD:

>lugh mu'tlhegh nuq?

I think there's been a good discussion of this, but when I first saw it, I didn't notice that {nuq} might be some sort of genitive construction and instead assumed that it was being used verbally.  Thus I assumed that {lugh} had been meant adjectivally and that the sentence should have been {mu'tlhegh lugh nuq?}

ghItlh SuStel:
>    jarlIj qaq nuq
>    what is your favorite month?

So similar to that.  In both cases, I would prefer to request the information using a command like {yIngu'}, but let's look at this structure a little.

ghItlh De'vID:
> The last was not Okrand's example, but suggested to him by someone
> else. In particular, Okrand explains that the expected answer to that
> question isn't a month, but a definition of "your favourite month".

Yet, if I wanted you to give me an answer like, {jarwIj qaq 'oH jar jav'e'}, could I ask, {jarlIj qaq 'oH nuq'e'?}  If one question can be answered with the identification of your favorite month and the other can only be answered with a definition of what the phrase "your favorite month" means, then would this mean that {jarlIj qaq 'oH nuq'e'?} and {jarlIj qaq nuq?} are not actually equivalent and are asking for different answers?

ghItlh 'eD:

> Could you, then, ask a question like <puq nuqtaH yaS?>

Remember that {nuq} used verbally is replacing a pronoun the way {nuq} normally replaces a noun.  {puq ghaH yaS} is non-grammatical.  {puq ghaH yaS'e'} means something along the lines of "As for the officer, he is a child."  Thus  I interpret {puq nuqtaH yaS'e'} as meaning something like, "As for the officer, what is being a child?"  I think I would assume this is asking something along the lines of what the officer thinks it's like to be a child.

janSIy
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol/attachments/20151207/faad8977/attachment-0001.html>