Re: Question and Question Mark
Saul Epstein 
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 14:32:51 -0600

From: Rob Zook <rzook*informix,com>
Date: Friday, January 16, 1998 1:39 PM

>At 12:57 PM 1/16/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote:
><snip>
>>I have
>>been assuming that the interrogative particle <qa> acts in a fashion
>>analogous to the question mark, and to interrogative particles in those
>>Terran languages that possess one (I can't think of them at the moment).
>
>Well, then I believe we are operating on the same wavelength then. If
>I understand you then, in your terms, one could also gloss qa X, as
>"evaluate x", correct?

Only because x is a complete statement. <qa> might be better glossed as,
"tell me," or "I ask you."

>So we need an interoggative particle for at least, each of the
>traditional seven questions: which, what, where, when, who, why and how.

Or an interrogative version of indicative pronouns and articles. These
question words can all be stated is kinds of "which" or "what:" which thing,
which place, which time, which person, which origin (or cause), which method
(or route). These have the not coincidental character of deriving from
masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns in the various cases

    who(he or she)/which(this)/what(that)    nominative
    whom(him or her)/which/what              accusative
    by whom/by which/how                     instrumental
    to whom/to which/why or wherefore        dative
    from whom/from which/why                 ablative
    whose/of which                           genitive
    in whom/where                            locative

Since <qa> may be a bound or a free particle, it may be the case that a free
<qa>, particularly at the beginning of a sentence or clause, indicates a
true-false question, while a bound <qa> attached to a pronoun makes that
pronoun represent a blank in a fill-in-the-blank question.

qaw     who(m)         qawl     who(f)         qan     which or what
qawhi   whom(m)        qawlhi   whom(f)        qanhi   which or what
qawti   by whom(m)     qawlti   by whom(f)     qanti   by which or how
qawha   to whom(m)     qawlha   to whom(f)     qanha   to which or why
qawtca  from whom(m)   qawltca  from whom(f)   qantca  from which or why
qawat   whose(m)       qawlat   whose(f)       qanat   of which
qawhe   in whom(m)     qawlhe   in whom(f)     qanhe   in which or where

So, "Where are you going?" could be something like

    s'imroi qanha
    thou-go ?-it-DATIVE

    (th'imroy) cikaarha
    (I-go) Shikahr-DATIVE

--
from Saul Epstein
liberty*uit,net
http://www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein
"Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'."
                                        -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at