In a way Japanese might be a conflator:
doko ka? - Where is it? (or: somewhere?)
doko ka - somewhere
dare ka? - Who is it? (or: somebody?)
dare ka - somebody
although the former in each case is colloquial (missing verb) and the
latter really ought to be treated as a single word.
Eugene
On 4/22/06, Larry Sulky <larrysulky@...> wrote:
> On 4/21/06, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> ---SNIP---
> > This makes it tricky to ask things like
> > "Do you have any cats?" -- the most straightforward way would
> > be ambiguous with "Which cats do you have?" This is
> > probably too confusing and I may well drop it. Or maybe there
> > is an alternate word for "some/any" that is used only in
> > questions...? Or a circumlocution like "one or more"?
>
> Wouldn't you just say "Do you have cats?"
>
> ---Larry
>