For this section, a few terms related to expressing questions—firstly, the main types of questions. "Polar questions" are questions which are answered with "yes" or "no", such as "Can Saba swim?" Polar questions are derived from declarative sentences, with the sentence final particle mà.

Saba líung tì pè
"Saba can swim."

Saba líung tì pè mà?
"Can Saba swim?"

Mà can also be used in "tag questions", which are for asking for confirmation.

Saba líung tì pè, mà?
"Saba can swim, right?"

Content questions, also called "wh-questions", ask about specific information, and correspond to the English "who", "what", "when", "where", "why", "how", etc. Content question words are compounded with mà.

"Who" questions use dèpmà, and are often structured like: "Relative clause someone who?", or "person who ___ (is) who?"; in Cainye, "person who..." is a relative clauses with the indefinite pronoun fón, an example of this has previously been seen in the Subclauses section.

(Who) yá là xèyân nang de fón dèpmà?
"Who just yelled my name?"
(lit.) "yell just my name 's person who?

The copula langdì can be deleted in this situations, just as in English. This strategy of relativizing the "content" being asked about in the question is how Cainye does it for all content questions. For "what" questions, the content is relativized to fé, which in this cases are indefinite "thing", but usually means "that", it is a demonstrative.

(What) de fén (de) fé qìmmà?
"What is that (thing) that is moving?"
(lit.) move -ing ('s) thing/that what?

"Where" questions use fédi...

(Where) ké hí fòng fén de fédi yinmà?
"Where do you live currently?"
(lit.) "you currently live -ing 's place where?"

...and so on, a chart compiles most of them at the bottom of this page.

ké yàm là fé de míun hanggìmà
"Why did you just say that?"

Xèyân xíqài yùtgíut de seng númà
"How do I bathe a cow?"

Màng xèyáng kù dekāte fé yínyín de qî xâjūmà?
"When did they teach you how to operate that machine?"

Polar	Content
mà	fón...dèpmà	fé...qìmmà	fédi...yinmà	míun...hanggìmà	seng...númà	qî...xâjū
yes/no	who	what	where	why	how	when