wi ‘yes’ and no ‘no’ are commonly used to answer yes/no questions.

In content questions (that ask for some specific information), interrogative phrases such as ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’ are usually placed at the position where the corresponding word would occur in non-question sentences – in contrast to English, they are not moved to the front of the sentence (WALS 93; APiCS 12).

Question words include:

ke – what
ke jen – who
ke tem – when
ke ples – where
por ke – why

XXX Examples for kese ‘how’ (in what manner, in what state, in which way):

… – How did you find me?
… – She showed her friend how to do it.
… – I remember well how I first met her/him. (used as conjunction)

If the answer will likely not contain a copula, no copula is used in the question either:

Ti kese? – How are you?
Mi hau. – I’m good.

XXX Explain how to express ‘which’ and ‘how many/how much’.

XXX more … than, less … than, … as …

the most … (of), the least … (of)

XXX Also derive the quantifier ‘most’, possibly as the superlative of ingi ‘many, much, very’.

(This may be called “adjuncts of time”; generally adjuncts give additional information on matters as such manner, time, place“)

Time expressions are noun phrases that are usually placed immediately before the verb. Time expressions include:

den depan – tomorrow
si den – today
den laste – yesterday
si tem – now
ke tem – when
ol tem – always
no tem – never

XXX Give further examples and explain usage.

Baru ‘just, recently’ can be used to describe the recent past.

Ya [arrive] baru. – He/She has just arrived.

Kwai ‘soon, be about to’ can be used to refer to the near future.

Ya lai kwai. – He/She’s about to come. / He/She will come soon.

XXX Form combinations of quantifiers with common nouns to express further correlatives:

• Possibly use tem for ‘never’, ‘sometimes’, ‘always’ etc.?
• place (location, position) – used for ‘somewhere’, ‘everywhere’ etc.
• manner (way of performing or effecting; method or style) – used to express “somehow” (in one way or another; in some way not yet known or designated) and related concepts.

san ‘Mr., Mrs., Miss’ is commonly used as a polite form of address, either in front of a person’s name or stand-alone.

XXX Give examples.

XXX These include:

salam – hello
xukuru – thank (verb), thanks (noun), thank you (interjection)