{"id":203,"date":"2011-05-30T01:57:36","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talossan.org\/?page_id=203"},"modified":"2011-05-30T01:57:36","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:57:36","slug":"interrogatives","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/?page_id=203","title":{"rendered":"Interrogatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Constructing questions in Talossan is mostly common sense, and as you will see, if you can ask a question in English, you know exactly how to phrase the same question in Talossan. In fact, you may find yourself reading a rule of grammar here and thinking, &#8220;I have no idea what that rule means,&#8221; but then when you see it in action in an example, you will think, &#8220;oh! well, that&#8217;s just common sense!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Recall that it is common to &#8220;invert&#8221; the subject and the verb, just as is done in English (as in the contrasting examples &#8220;you are sick&#8221; and &#8220;are you sick?&#8221;, one a statement and the other a question). Again, this movement of the subject to after the verb is something that is done rather unconsciously in one&#8217;s native tongue, which means that when beginning to speak in a new language, it is often forgotten.<\/p>\n<h2>Interrogative Particles<\/h2>\n<p>Talossan also has some interrogative particles that can be used to cast a statement into a question. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>\u00bfoi?<\/em> (= yes? right?). For example, <em>menxhev\u00e1s el crust, \u00bfoi?<\/em> (= you ate the pie, yes?)<\/li>\n<li><em>\u00bfnon c&#8217;e vr\u00e4ts?<\/em> (= isn&#8217;t that true?). For example, <em>menxhev\u00e1s el crust, \u00bfnon c&#8217;e vr\u00e4ts?<\/em> (= you are the pie, isn&#8217;t that true?).<\/li>\n<li><em>\u00bfn&#8217;est\u00e1s-c&#8217;e?<\/em> (= don&#8217;t you\/we\/they?, doesn&#8217;t he\/she\/it?). Notice that this phrase preserves a verb conjugation that is now extinct in modern Talossan. The <strong>-\u00e1s<\/strong> ending should not be taken to mean that the phrase is specific to second-person singular subjects (&#8220;you&#8221;). <\/li>\n<li><em>e-\u00e7a qe<\/em> (= is it [the case] that). This particle is rather rarely seen.  It is used at the beginning of a statement to convert it to a question. For example, <em>\u00bfe-\u00e7a qe menxhev\u00e1s el crust?<\/em> (= is it [the case] that you ate the pie?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These particles are especially useful to create a question from a statement that employs one of the impersonal verb forms <em>ja <\/em>(= it is) and <em>j&#8217;ont<\/em> (= there are). For example, <em>\u00bfe-\u00e7a qe j&#8217;ont dels plaes?<\/em> (= is it that there are plans?).<\/p>\n<p>As in English, a sentence phrased as a statement (that is, with the subject preceding the verb) can be used as a question if intonation implies doubt or disbelief. For example, <em>\u00a1\u00bftu menxhev\u00e1s el crust?!<\/em> (= you ate the pie?!).<\/p>\n<h2>Use of Pronouns in Interrogatives<\/h2>\n<p>When forming an information question, you should think first of the role that the interrogative pronoun plays in a declarative statement that would answer the question:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the pronoun in a question represents the subject of the answer, then the question should be phrased like a declarative statement, with the pronoun coming before the verb. For example, <em>\u00bfqi s\u00e4p el respuns?<\/em> (= who knows the answer?)<\/li>\n<li>If the pronoun represents the object of the answer, the interrogative pronoun still leads the question, but the subject is placed in inversion (after the verb). For example, <em>\u00bfqet s\u00e4ps-tu d&#8217;acest?<\/em> (= what do you think about that?).<\/li>\n<li>If the pronoun represents an indirect obect, the preposition that would appropriately go with the object in the answer precedes the interrogative pronoun in the question. For example, <em>\u00bfqi&#8217;st da qi aprendev\u00e1s&#8217;t acest?<\/em> (= who is it from whom you learned that?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Inversion of subject and verb is similarly used with interrogative adverbs, as in <em>\u00bfcome s\u00e4ps-tu acest?<\/em> (= how do you know that?). As with yes\/no questions, any of the information questions that require inversion can be expressed using the particle <em>e-\u00e7a-qe<\/em>, as in <em>\u00bfcom&#8217;e-\u00e7a qe tu s\u00e4ps acest?<\/em> (= how is it that you know that?).<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"\/?page_id=63\" onmouseover=\"this.style.cursor='hand'\"><input class=\"inputSubmit\" type=\"button\" value=\"Next: Start Diving Into Talossan's Verb System...\" onclick=\"window.location='\/?page_id=63'\"><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Constructing questions in Talossan is mostly common sense, and as you will see, if you can ask a question in English, you know exactly how to phrase the same question in Talossan. In fact, you may find yourself reading a rule of grammar here and thinking, &#8220;I have no idea what that rule means,&#8221; but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":55,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}