ordinal interrogatives

[Spencer, Andrew J]

You may have seen reference to an interrogative verb in Chukchee,
essentially the root req 'what' inflected as either a transitive or
intransitive verb.

Chukchee also has an ordinal interrogative (though my earlier posting to the
list about this seems to have got trapped in the ether.)

Andrew Spencer

-----Original Message-----
From: G.Lazard [mailto:gilzard at WANADOO.FR]
Sent: 13 February 2001 15:01
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re : ordinal interrogatives


Dear Frans,

    It seems that somebody said that Roman languages do not have ordinal
interrogative words. French has one: quantieme, ex. le quantieme jour du
mois.
   It is a rare word practically used only in the administrative style. It
is certainly unknown by the majority of French speakers.
    However there is another word in the colloquial language, although it is
deemed "incorrect": combientieme, from combien? "how much? how many? +
suffix -(t)ieme, as in troisieme "third", huitieme "eighth". Ex.:
    c'est le combientieme biscuit que tu es en train de manger? "it is the
how-many-th cookie that you are eating?'

    This question reminds me of another one. What is much rarer and more
interesting than ordinal interrogative pronouns   is an interrogative verb.
Such a word exists in Tahitian (Polynesian). aha is a purely interrogative
word, which, with an article, is a pronoun, and, with an aspectual particle,
is a verb. Ex.

       te aha "what?"
       ART
       e   aha te pahî "What does/will the ship do?"
       ASP        ship

(cf. Lazard & Peltzer, Structure de la langue tahitienne, Paris 2000, just
published).

    I have seen an interrogative verb also in another language, but I do not
remember which one.

    Best wishes.

    Gilbert Lazard