Salmoneus wrote:Leaving aside Trebor's bizarre "of" in that example, which makes it ungrammatical for me, how is "how long a book is it?" idiomatic? Except, I guess, in defining that dimension as length rather than depth or width, which I guess might make more sense. But "how wide a book is it?" or "how prolonged a story is it?" would be pretty direct and non-idiomatic paraphrases that would still display the grammar.
This is actually easier to translate, but the dimension for a book can only be thickness, never length in Indonesian. In all of these examples, thickness acta more like a noun:
(2') These all sound correct and okay:
Buku itu se-berapa tebal?
book DEM one-how_many thick
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book
Se-berapa tebal-nya Buku itu ?
one-how_many thick-3SG.POSS book DEM
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book
Buku itu tebal-nya bagaimana?
book DEM thick-3SG.POSS how?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?
Tebal-nya bagaimana buku itu ?
thick-3SG.POSS how book DEM
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?
Buku itu tebal-nya bagaimana?
book DEM thick-3SG.POSS how?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?
This one sounds kind of weird, but not really
?
Se-berapa buku itu tebal?
one-how_many book DEM thick
How thick is the book? lit. How many is the thickness like of that book
This one sounds a bit better
?
Bagaimana buku itu tebal-nya?
how book DEM thick-3SG.POSS?
How thick is the book? lit. How is the thickness of that book?
These also show that only nouns can be questioned, or that you can only question degree of words that can take the third person possessive affix. This makes it difficult to translate the questions in 4,5, and 6 are more difficult. In real discourse you would usually not ask for the degree, but instead for the truth of the property. Keep in mind that you could always answer these with a degree. Sorry for not helping much with pied-piping.
(4)
Ujian susa, tidak?
exam difficult, NEG
Was the exam difficult?
Ujian itu susanya bagaimana?
exam DEM difficult-3POSS how
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam
Bagaimana susanya ujian itu?
how difficult-3POSS exam DEM
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam
The next one is not okay
*
Bagaimana ujian itu susanya
how difficult-3POSS exam DEM
How difficult was the exam lit. how was the difficulty of the exam
(5) Okay, so helpful is not really an adjective in Indonesian, IINM.
Kamu kira pelayan mau bantu, tidak?
2SG think servant want help, NEG
Do you think the receptionist wanted to help?
If we use the word 'how' to question the constituent including 'help', we can only ask how he wanted to help.
Kamu kira pelayan mau bantu bagaimana?
2SG think servant want help how
How do you think the receptionist wanted to help?
Again, I find 6 and 7 difficult to translate, because questioning the degree of adverbs is not easy. Let's try an easier example:
Cepat-nya manusia berapa kalau lari?
fast-3poss human how_much if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs
Manusia cepat-nya berapa kalau lari?
human fast-3poss how_much if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs
Manusia kalau lari cepat-nya berapa?
human if run fast-3poss how_much
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs
Berapa cepat-nya manusia kalau lari?
how_much fast-3poss human if run
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs
This one does not work:
*
Berapa manusia kalau lari cepat-nya ?
how_much human if run fast-3poss
How fast does a human run? lit. how much is the speed of a human if (s)he runs