I was reading through this paper/article and I have been trying to wrap my head around this explanation on the use of the particle か. ↓↓
However, か can also be used as a direct translation for “or”, but a very specific one: the logical connective “or”. There is a rather big difference between the natural language “or” and the logical “or”, in that the latter doesn’t ask about which choice to go with, but whether at least one of the choices listed is correct:
Person A: “Would you like coffee, or tea?”
Person B: “Coffee, please.” (interpreting ‘or’ naturally)Person A: “Would you like coffee or tea?”
Person B: “Yes, please.” (interpreting ‘or’ logically)What happened in this second conversation? Rather than interpreting ‘or’ as the natural version, person B decided to interpret it as the logical connective, meaning he answered the question “would you like [coffee or tea]” — the logical ‘or’ doesn’t give you a choice, it connects the choices into a single option, which is picked if any one of the otherwise individual choices is picked, or isn’t picked if none of them work. In Japanese, using か to list choices in this way means offering people this kind of logical ‘or’ choice:
Person A: コーヒーにしますか、お茶にしますか。(“Will (you) have coffee, or tea?”)
Person B: コーヒーをください。(“Coffee, please.”)Person A: コーヒーかお茶にしますか。(“Will (you) have coffee or tea?”)
Person B: いいえ、今は冷たいお飲み物がいいと思います、ね。(“No, (I) think right now something cold (literally, ‘a cold drink’) would be nicer.”)This can potentially lead to confusion, or seemingly incomplete answers:
Person A: 電車でんしゃで行きますか、バスで行いきますか。(“Will you go by train, or by bus?”)
Person B: 電車で。(“By train.”)Person A: 電車かバスで行きますか。(“Will you go by train or bus?”)
Person B: はい。(“Yes.”)The key here is that the answer is actually not incomplete given the question asked. An “[X]か[Y]” question is a yes or no question, and so there is no obligation to give any more information than what is being asked for. Beginning students of Japanese often forget that using か in this fashion only applies to the logical connective ‘or’, and start mistakenly using it wherever in English the word ‘or’ is used. It deserves extra warning: avoid using か to mean ‘or’ until you’ve developed a good grasp of the Japanese language.
What exactly is he trying to express here? Is it that the sentence structure [option-1]か [option-2], can be interpreted as either a multiple choice question, or as a yes or no question?
Any thoughts? My head hurts! (~_~メ)
