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Arabic/whoseQuestions

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In English, we sometimes say things like: Q1. "Whose pen is that?" Q2. "Whose mother picks up the kids?" Q3. "Whose father died?" Q4. "Whose friend is in trouble"

And the answers go something like this: A1."That's my pen." A2. "Fred's mother picks up the kids." A3. "My best friend's father died." A4. "His best friend is in trouble."

But sometime people can't give different types of answers: X1. "I don't know." X2. "What?! Someone picks up the kids from school?! I thought they walked home." X3. "I think John's father died." (the speaker is not certain) X4. "No one is in trouble."

So how do we say "Whose" like it was in Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Well, instead of saying whose in Arabic we say لـمن (li-man). Recall that لِـ (li) is a preposition meaning "for", as in "He spoke for John." And recall that من (man) means "who" but only in a question so it kind of means "who?". So instead of saying "Whose", we say something that literally translates to "for-who".

So let's try to translate Q1. لـمن will start the sentence instead of "whose".