For this week’s installation in our Asking questions series, we’ll focus on asking “where” questions. In Kullilli, the base word for where is ngala, and it takes one of three suffixes: nominative, ablative, or dative depending on how it is used in the sentence.

1.) Nominative form ngalaani

The nominative form of ngala takes the suffix -ani. It has the same meaning as where in English when it is used to talk about location (and not movement). The English sentences “Where are you?” or “Where is my book?” would take the nominative suffix in Kullilli, since the desired information deals with location. On the other hand, questions like “Where did you go?” or “Where is this book from?” would not take the nominative form in Kullilli, since both of these deal with movement, not location. We’ll talk about how to ask questions about movement after we look at this example sentence that uses the nominative form ngalaani:

ngalaani    ingka    ngurra
ngala -ani  ingka    ngurra
where  nom  2sg.dat  camp
"Where is your camp?"

2.) Ablative form ngalaandru

If we want to ask about movement from (like asking where from in English), we need to use the ablative form in Kullilli. This form is created by adding the suffix -andru to the base ngala:

ngalaandru    ini
ngala -andru  ini
where  abl    2sg.nom
"Where are you from?"

3.) Dative form ngalaanga

Similarly, if we want to ask about movement toward (like asking where to in English), we need to use the dative form, which is created by adding the dative suffix -anga:

ngalaanga    ini      yanhthagala
ngala -anga  ini      yanhtha -gala
where  dat   2sg.nom  go      present 
"Where are you going (to)?"

That’s everything on asking “where” questions in Kullilli! Next week, we’ll be covering “how much/many” and “when” questions.

We continue this week in our Asking questions series by going over how to form “what” and “why” questions in Kullilli. Let’s get into it!

The base form for “what” and “why” questions in Kullilli is mina or minha. Unlike wara, which is used for “who” questions and can take one of four different cases, mina only has two forms in our data: base form (with no case) or dative.

1.) form minha (or mina)

When asking any normal “what” question like you would do in English, Kullilli uses minha or mina. The example below shows this:

minha yarinyani    nhaniyi       marniani
minha yarinya -ni  nhani   -yi   marni           -ani
what  name    nom  3sg.nom here  ceremonial dance nom
"What is the name of this dance?"

It’s a bit unclear to us why we sometimes have minha and sometimes mina. We think it might always be pronounced like minha but it’s hard to hear the difference between nh and n for a lot of people.

2.) Dative form minaanga

The dative form of mina takes the dative suffix -anga, forming minaanga. Here it is not understood as “what”. Instead, it is understood as “why”. Literally, it means “What for?”. Dative cases can mean something that is the recipient or beneficiary of an action, so if you look at it that way, it makes sense that the dative case of the question “what” is asking “what for?”, where the “recipient” or “beneficiary” of the action is actually the reason (meaning something like “for what reason?”). In the example below, you’ll see that minanga correlates directly with ‘what’ and ‘dative (for)’, but it is understood as the question “why?”:

minaanga    nhina         dhithigala
mina -anga  nhina         dhithi -gala
what  dat   3sg.masc.nom  laugh  present
"Why is he laughing?" or "What is he laughing for?"

3.) Another way of asking what

Other than minha and minaanga, there is one more way of saying “what” in Kullilli: wani. However, as far as we can tell, this word only shows up in the question “What is your name?”, so it is very much an exception:

wani  ingka    yarinyaani
wani  ingka    yarinya -ani
what  2sg.dat  name     nom
"What is your name?"

That’s all for this week! Next week, we will be posting about “where” questions in Kullilli. Stay tuned and remember that you can ask us questions using the “Contact” button on this site!

Last week we went over how to ask “yes or no” questions in Kullilli. This week, we’ll be continuing with the topic of asking questions by taking a look at how to ask “who” questions.

The first thing to keep in mind when we want to ask “who” questions is that there are more than one form of who. In English, we have who, whom (even though it’s old-fashioned and most people don’t use it) and whose. Kullilli uses a similar system that breaks “who” down into four different words. The base form of who in Kullilli is wara, and we add different case suffixes to it depending on the role it plays in the sentence. Let’s go over the four different forms of wara now:

1.) Nominative form warani

One of the case suffixes we can add to wara is the nominative suffix -ni, forming the word warani. The nominative form warani used to ask questions like “Who spoke?”, “Who left?”, or “Who slept?”. Notice that in each of these questions the do-er of the verb does not take any object (unlike questions like “Who drank my coffee?”, where the do-er of the drinking takes the object “my coffee”). For a refresher on how to use nominative case in Kullilli, check out our blog posts here and here.

Here is an example sentence (that we made up) of a sentence that uses warani:

warani    nhaniguru      guthinga
wara -ni  nhani   -guru  guthi -nga
who  nom  3sg.nom there  run   past
"Who ran away?"

It’s typical in Kullilli for the question word (here, warani) to go at the beginning of the sentence, like it does in English.

2.) Ergative form waralu

The ergative form of wara is used for subjects (do-ers) in questions where the do-er of the verb does take an object. In English questions like “Who drank my coffee?” or “Who fed the cat?”, who is in the ergative case, since it represents the person that does an action (drink, feed) to something else (the coffee, the cat). You can find more examples of how to use the ergative case in Kullilli here and here.

In Kullilli, the ergative form of wara takes the suffix -lu, as in the sentence below:

waralu    nganytya  manhdhanga    nhangala  makurranha
wara -lu  nganytya  manhdha -nga  nhangala  makurra -nha
who  erg  1sg.dat   grasp   past  3sg.loc   stick    acc
"Who picked up my stick here?"

3.) Accusative form waranha

The accusative form of wara marks the object of a question. In English, this is roughly the same as the word whom (even though in modern English, the word who is more often used instead), like in the sentence “Who(m) did you visit?” or “Who(m) did the dog bite?”. In both of these sentences, who(m) is not the do-er of the verb, but instead is the thing that has the verb done to them. Check out our blog posts here and here for more info on using accusative constructions in Kullilli.

In Kullilli, the accusative form of wara takes the suffix -nha, like in the sentence below (that we made up):

waranha    ingka    dhitiandru    dratyanga
wara -nha  ingka    dhiti -andru  dratya -nga
who   acc  2sg.dat  dog    erg    bite   past
"Who(m) did your dog bite?"

4.) Dative form waranga

The dative form of wara translates to the English word whose. It is used to show possession, like when you’re asking questions like “Whose shoes are these?” or “Whose daughter are you?”.

In Kullilli, the dative form of wara takes the suffix -nga. Here is an example sentence:

waranga    nhani    dhithiani    guthidhikadhikagala
wara -nga  nhani    dhithi -ani  guthi dhika    dhika  -gala
who   dat  3sg.nom  dog     nom  run   go back  go back past
"Whose is this dog running around?"

Now you know all the forms of who in Kullilli and how to use them to make questions! We will be back next week to continue our Asking questions series, where we will discuss “what” and “why” questions in Kullilli. See you all then!