ABSTRACT
The second kind of question asks for specific information and uses a question word like 'who', 'what', 'when'. In the dialogue you met two such question words in Amharic: "J7 'who' and ?°7 'what'. From the dialogue you can see that in Amharic these words usually come before the verb: 9 (I&- "77 ><»•? ya saw man naw? 'who is that man?' (lit. 'that man is who?'). In combination with the verb ><D-'to be' these are often written as a single word: *1 >a>* mannaw 'who is it?' and ?*><D-minnaw'what is it?'(the latter also means 'what's the matter?' and sometimes 'why is it?'). Another way of saying 'what is it?' is 9°1£*7 *<»•, ^°7«,><»* or ^°7itC ><D-mindinnaw or mindirnaw.
