interrogative -indefinites

[Catherine Rudin]

Yes, and in Slavic too, and I believe in Japanese (?) and even in the probably Yiddish-influenced English of many of the people I grew up with (You've got what to eat? i.e. do you have something to eat, when sending someone off on an outing where they might want to take a snack along)  * this doesn't make it any less interesting, however!  On the contrary, something this widespread is obviously a deep and significant phenomenon; not something that just happened to occur in one language, but something that's happened over and over in the history of human languages.  
Catherine

>>> ti at fa-kuan.muc.de 9/30/2005 12:32 PM >>>

> (Willem):  As far as interrogative-indefinites are concerned, I think you will find 
the phenomenon quite common cross-linguistically.  Apache, and I think 
most if not all Athabascan languages, also have 
interrogative-indefinites. :} <<

This phenomenon even exists in good old (esp. vernacular) German:

"Was sagst du da?" (What are you saying here?) vs. "Ich sag' dir was." 
(I tell you something).
"Wo warst du denn?" (Where have you been?) vs. "Ich bin wo gewesen, wo's 
sehr schön war." (I was somewhere where it's been very nice) etc.



Alfred




























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