Tsez Language - Morphology - Pronouns - Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns make a distinction between human ("who?") and non-human ("what?") only in the oblique forms, but not in the absolutive. The non-human interrogative pronouns require the class IV affix when triggering agreement.

Interrogative pronouns that are replacing an adjunct (as, for instance, "when?" or "why?") usually occur at the beginning of the sentence, while those replacing arguments ("who?", "what?", etc.) often stay in the position of the replaced word. However, they can be fronted as well for the purpose of discourse-specific linking. Thus, a fronted šebi might be translated as "Which...?" instead of "What...?".

Other interrogative pronouns include:

• dice ("how much?")
• didiyu ("which?")
• didur ("how?")
• łina-s ("why?"), this seems to be the genitive 1 form of the non-human oblique interrogative pronoun
• nā ("where?"), stem na-
• neti ("when?")
• šidā ("why?")
• šomo ("how many?")