Re: Relatives, interrogatives and other such particles

On 4/21/06, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> 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?
Shoshoni, a Uto-Aztecan language of the North American Great Basin
conflates interrogatives and indefinites. These
indefinites/interrogatives all begin with /h/:

hakaten, hakkai, hakkan  'who, whom, whose; somebody/one, anybody/one'
hiin, hinna  'what, what kind; something, anything'
hakani(kku)  'how, what way; somehow, however, anyhow'
himpai  'when; somewhere, anywhere'
&c.

A couple of sentences:

kai hinni o makatte naataikwawaihte
not anything her about PASS-say-ASP
'Nothing could be said about her.'

hakanikku witsa ne man kopaitta puinnuh mai sute suante
how maybe I her face see-PAST QUOT he think-ASP
'How can I see her face?' he wondered.

Perhaps not the best examples, but they were handy.

Dirk