Quēxquich

In English, we distinguish countable (also called aggregate) nouns like ‘dogs’ or ‘bottles’ from non-countable nouns like ‘milk’ or ‘help’ in terms of how we speak of counting such entities. Sometimes we use different quantifier for the two categories. For instance, ‘many’ and ‘fewer’ are used of countable nouns, whereas the same notions are given for non-countable nouns in the form ‘much’ and ‘less’. When we inquire about the quantity of nouns, we use interrogative quantifiers, and here again there are different expressions for the two categories. For countable nouns, we say, ‘How many?’, even if the answer is not expected to take the form of a specific number (i.e., we expect the answer ‘a few’ or ‘not many’ rather than ‘five’). With non-countable nouns, we ask, ‘How much?’, and generally the answer has to be given in a non-numeric form (e.g., ‘a lot’, ‘not much’).

Nahuatl also has two different interrogative quantifiers, but the distinction between the two words is made on a different basis than in English. Whereas English concentrates on the nature of the noun (whether or not it can be counted), the two Nahuatl interrogatives are distinguished by the nature of the answer expected. We have already encountered quēzqui (7.1), which expects a specific answer in the form of a number. In addition, there's the interrogative quēxquich, which expects a non-specific answer like miyac ‘much/many’ or huēyi ‘big’.