"Which" questions in Lojban

[cowan (John Cowan)]

Nick Nicholas used the word "which" in his short translation about news,
which prompted me to realize that some explanation may be appropriate about
suitable Lojban translations of this word.

There are two, or perhaps three, senses of "which" in English.  One use is
relative, and is illustrated by the previous sentence.  This is simply "noi"
in Lojban:  "such-that-incidentally".  The subject of this article, though,
is the use of "which" in questions.

"Which book do you have?" can have several translations, depending on intent:

	do ponse le ki'a cukta
	You possess the (Confusion!) book.

is appropriate when the speaker is unclear about the possible set of books
you might have, and wishes to express confusion.

	do ponse le mo cukta
	You possess the what-type-of book?

is appropriate when the speaker wishes the book-possessor to respond with
additional information about the book he/she has.
This might be a color, a predicate of location like "zunle" = "The left one",
or even a title: "me la'e zoi gy. A Tale Of Two Cities .gy"

	do ponse le xomoi cukta
	You possess the what-number-th book?

is appropriate when the possible books form an ordered set and the speaker
wishes an ordinal number identifying the book.  This is perhaps unlikely
for books, but might come up in a police line-up:

	le xomoi prenu cu darxi do
	The what-number-th man hit you?
	Which man (answer by number) hit you?