Re: Question words and word order

From: Aslan Kral (aslanski2002_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/07/05 

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 11:29:42 +0200

"John Swindle" <jcswindle@msn.deletethispart.com>, haber iletisinde şunları
yazdı:8CrWd.76009$uc.48330@trnddc04...

<snip>

> >
> > How 'bout turning a sentence into a question sentence without using
> > question
> > words?
> >
> > I am OK.
> > Which way does Esperanto take?
> > 1- You are OK?
> > 2- Are you OK?
> > 3- Both
> >
>
> The word order is flexible, but a question word is needed. In this
> case it's the little word "chu" at the begining of a sentence that turns
> a statement into a question. (That may be like the Russian "-li"
> question, but I think the Russian requires a modified word order.)
> In Esperanto,
>
> Mi fartas bone. (I am okay.)
> Chu vi fartas bone? (Are you okay?)
>
> Mi bone fartas. (I am okay.)
> Chu vi bone fartas? (Are you okay?)
>
> Fartas mi bone. (I am okay.)
> Chu fartas vi bone? (Are you okay?)
>
> Bone mi fartas. (I am okay.)
> Chu bone vi fartas? (Are you okay?)
>
> . . . and two more permutations that happen to sound odd to me
> but are probably fine for someone else.
>
>

Is "chu" always used at the beginning?

In Turkish, we also use a word "mi/mI/mu/mü" (actually a suffix) similarly.
But it comes right after the queried element.

Let x, y, z be elements in a sentence:

sentence = x y z
question-1: "x-mi y z?" asks about x, a yes or no answer is expected.
question-2: "x y-mi z?" asks about y.
question-3: "x y z-mi?" asks about z or the whole sentence "(x y z)-mi?"

IIRC, Chinese does it the same way using the same word ("mu" I guess).
Somebody can correct me if I am wrong.

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