*n   

*nay deictic particle: this

*nema what thing?

Note:   The PAn interrogative system does not appear to have had a one-to-one correspondence with that of English. The interrogative morpheme *-nu combined with *a- in *anu to form the indefinite or reflexive interrogative ‘what-cha-ma-callit’ (in which the speaker, in effect, asks in soliloquy what it is he is trying to recall), with *i- ‘locative’ in *inu to form ‘where?’, and in individual languages with other elements to form various interrogative expressions, as with Atayal (Squliq) nanu ‘what?’, Siraya manno ‘when?’ or Yami sinu ‘who?’. The word reconstructed here differs from these in lacking *-nu, and possibly in referring only to nouns (cp. the ‘thing’ sense in Thao ma-numa-numa and various of the Paiwan derivatives). The change *e > u/__m is recurrent in both Thao and Favorlang/Babuza/BABZ, as *lemlem ‘dark’ > Thao ma-rumrum ‘dim, unlit’, and *dalem > Favorlang/Babuza/BABZ lallum (/lalum/) ‘inside’.