Re: Relatives, interrogatives and other such particles

Hi!

Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> writes:
> English and several other Indo-European languages conflate the
> interrogative and relative particles (who, where, what, etc. can be
> relative or interrogative depending on context and maybe intonation).
> Some other languages distinguish them (including some IE languages like
> Greek: hos, hopou, etc. vs ti, pou, etc.).  Are there languages that conflate
> the interrogatives or relatives with some other series -- maybe
> the indefinites (who? = somebody, where? = somewhere,
> what? = something...) or indifferents (who? = anybody, etc.)
> or even the demonstratives?
>...
Als Philip already said, Colloquial German has interrogative ~ indifferents.

Standard German also has article ~ relative pronoun:

   Der Mann hat Hunger.
   The man  has hunger
   'The man is hungry.'

   Der Mann, der Hunger hat, ist groß.
   The man   who hunger has  is  tall

Further, Colloqial German has article ~ 3rd person pronoun:

   Der hat Hunger.   (Instead of 'Er hat Hunger.')
   he  has hunger

Moreover, the written language demonstrative 'jener' is usually
replaced by 'der da' and the written 'dieser' replaced by 'der hier'
colloquially.  Then, 'da' and 'hier' may even be dropped if you stress
'der/die/das', so you get articel ~ demonstrative:

   *Der* Mann hat Hunger.
   that  man  has hunger

In total, colloquial German has:

   article ~ relative pronoun ~ 3rd person pronoun ~ demonstrative

Thus, 'der/die/das' is quite a multipurpose thingy.

**Henrik

Reply