Something, someone, some people in Japanese: 何か・誰か・何人か truly explained

How to express indefiniteness in Japanese: usage, meaning, and the logic of か

Category: Niche Japanese

How are expressions such as 何か (nanika), 誰か (dareka), どこか (dokoka), or 何人か (nanninka) formed?

It is important to know that the particle か in Japanese is not only an interrogative marker, that is, the equivalent of a “?” at the end of a sentence (we already examined in a previous article an interesting use of ka inside the marker のか), but also functions as a marker of the unknown or the indefinite.

In other words, か signals that something is not defined or known, and for this reason it is used in various contexts: to ask questions, to list alternatives (with a function similar to “or”), and to form indefinite pronouns when it follows an interrogative pronoun.

This latter use is almost never explained in grammar books or textbooks for foreign learners, which usually limit themselves to providing translations of indefinite nouns / pronouns / adverbs, without actually offering any explanation of their origin or how they are formed.

In order to overcome this barrier, in the sections below we will examine this “lesser-known” use of か as a marker of indefiniteness, illustrating the grammar behind it, reconstructing its history (we will return to the origins of the particle か in a dedicated article), and concluding with the usual summary table and some practical examples.

The particle か as a marker of indefiniteness

The indefinite-marking function of か in forms such as 何か, 何人か, or いくつか arises from the interaction between the indeterminate nature of interrogative bases (for example 何 - “what?”) or interrogative quantificational forms (for example 何人 - “how many people?”, generally referred to respectively as wh-words and wh-numerals), and the particle か, which — depending on the syntactic level to which it attaches — can function either as a question operator or as a mechanism of selection / existence that produces an indefinite meaning (“something / someone / some”).

We will leave aside the first case (the classic one), since it is not the focus of this article, and concentrate on describing the second.

In Japanese grammar, wh-forms (何, 誰, どこ, etc.) are generally treated as interrogative elements; however, when combined with particles such as か, they can give rise to indefinite expressions.

In many formal analyses (wh-word + か), these sequences are interpreted as indefinite pronouns: elements that are not inherently interrogative, but instead introduce a set of alternatives (for example possible individuals, quantities, or places), which then require an appropriate grammatical operator in order to be interpreted.

A useful way of visualizing this (compatible with many formal analyses) is:

• a wh-base (for example 何 nani – “what”, 誰 dare – “who”, どこ doko – “where”, 幾つ ikutsu – “how many / how much (objects)”, 何人 nan-nin – “how many people”) introduces a domain of alternatives;
• か can:
  • operate at sentence level (typically in final position) and turn the set of propositional alternatives into a question;
  • operate at constituent level when it directly follows the wh-base and comes before any case markers, producing an existential reading (“there exists an x among the relevant alternatives”), often with an added nuance of speaker ignorance or indifference as to which alternative is the actual one.

Morphological mechanism and composition

In modern Japanese, the indefinite wh + か typically behaves as a nominal structure that can take case markers and particles: for example 何かを, 誰かに, どこかへ, 何人かが.

This matches the traditional dictionary description (for example 「代名詞 + 助詞 か」), which distinguishes between か as interrogative / rhetorical usage and か as indefinite usage.

In this article, what concerns us is the second one.

From the point of view of composition, the pattern can be represented like this:

• [wh + か] → indefinite expression (introduces a non-specified element within a set of alternatives);
• [wh + か] + case markers → integration of the expression into the syntactic structure (for example [何か]を “something” + accusative).

In practice, the most common uses of か to create indefinite elements are the following:

With interrogative pronouns

By adding か to an interrogative pronoun (for example, as we saw above: 何 nani “what”, 誰 dare “who”, どこ doko “where”, いつ itsu “when”, etc.), it turns into an indefinite pronoun with a non-specific meaning.

For example:

• 何か (nani ka) – “something” (literally “what + indefinite”)
• 誰か (dare ka) – “someone” (lit. “who + indefinite”)
• どこか (doko ka) – “somewhere” (lit. “where + indefinite”)
• いつか (itsu ka) – “sometime / one day” (an undetermined point in time)

In all of these expressions, か signals that the identity of the element is not specified: it may be unknown to the speaker, or simply irrelevant in context.

A useful practical rule — or rather an intuitive way to understand how this works — is to imagine the implicit question contained in the interrogative base and then provide an unspecified answer.

For example, to the question “誰?” (“Who?”), an indefinite answer would be “someone,” that is 誰か.

In the sentence 「誰かが来た。」 (dareka ga kita) – “Someone came.”, 誰か is not asking “who?”, but rather stating that there is a certain individual (not identified) who came.

Likewise, 「何かがおかしい」 (nanika ga okashii) means “Something is strange.”, expressing vagueness about what exactly it is.

This use is therefore completely different from the interrogative use of か: here we are not asking a question, but intentionally indicating indefinite information.

With quantitative interrogatives

When か follows a quantitative interrogative term (such as いくつ ikutsu “how many (items)?”, 何人 nan-nin “how many people?”, etc.), the result is an expression meaning “some” or “a certain number of…”, implying a plural quantity that is small or limited.

For example, 何人か (nan-nin ka) means “some people” (literally “how many people? + indefinite”) and suggests a few individuals, a small number overall.

Likewise, 「いくつか食べた。」 (ikutsu ka tabeta) – “I ate some.” uses いくつか to indicate a few pieces (not many).

This nuance shows that か not only makes the quantity indefinite, but often frames it as modest or limited (as opposed, for example, to いくつも, where も can imply larger or more emphasized quantities).

In expressions with とか

The element とか contains the particle か within it and historically developed from the combination of the coordinating particle と (used to present elements as a closed or complete set) and か.

This sequence later became grammaticalized as a single form.

In modern Japanese, とか typically functions as a particle of indefinite listing or vagueness, used to present non-exhaustive examples or to soften the precision of a statement.

This use of とか as a marker of open-ended lists is mentioned in practically every beginner grammar book; however, it is rarely made explicit that this function reflects the original sense of indeterminacy associated with か.

As mentioned above, it is used both to list non-exhaustive examples and to report uncertain or indirect information.

For example:

「漱石とか鴎外とかといった文人」

– “writers such as Sōseki, Ōgai, and so on”

uses とか after each name to indicate an open-ended list of examples.

Here とか is similar to “like” or “for example” in English, signaling that the mentioned elements are representative but not limited to those.

Likewise, 「寿司とかラーメンが好きです」 means “I like sushi, ramen, and things like that,” indicating preferences not limited to a closed list.

In addition, とか appears in sentences such as:

「家族が病気だとかで困っているらしい」

– “I heard they seem to be having trouble because a family member is sick, or something like that,”

where とか expresses uncertainty or reported information: the speaker softens the statement as something not fully confirmed (“they say that…”, “apparently…”).

In all of these uses, the presence of か (inside とか) adds the idea that there may be other possibilities, other unmentioned elements, or some margin of uncertainty.

This distinguishes it from the simple particle と (which by itself functions as quotation or a more definite coordinating particle) and from the listing particle や, because とか emphasizes non-exhaustiveness or uncertainty.

For example, AやB means “A, B, and so on” in a neutral way, whereas AとかBとか tends to sound more like “A, B, and similar things” or even “A or B or something along those lines.”

Historical development of か as a marker of indefiniteness

The use of か to create indefinite forms goes back to the earliest stages of the Japanese language. Etymological studies indicate that this particle derives from Proto-Japanese (Proto-Japonic) *ka, which means that an element with this function was already present in the proto-language. The oldest surviving Japanese texts clearly show the use of か in interrogative and indefinite meanings.

For example, in the poetic anthology Man’yōshū (759 CE, containing material dating back even earlier) and in the Kojiki (712 CE), we find constructions with か expressing questions, doubt, or indefiniteness. This indicates that already by the eighth century (and most likely even earlier in speech), か functioned as a broadly dubitative particle, used both to ask questions and to shade statements with uncertainty.

In classical Japanese (the Heian period and afterwards), か was classified among the 係助詞 (binding particles or correlative particles), that is, particles that linked one part of the sentence to the final predicate while adding a particular modality.

More specifically, in classical Japanese か was used to emphasize interrogativity or conjecture, and required the predicate to appear in the attributive form (連体形) rather than the conclusive form (終止形), a syntactic phenomenon known as kakari-musubi.

For example, a classical sentence such as 「誰が天地を造りしか。」 (dare ga tenchi o tsukurishi ka – “Who created heaven and earth?”) shows か following the attributive form tsukurishi of the verb tsukuru (“to create”).

This final か clearly marked a direct question (in this case rhetorical or poetic), a function very close to the modern interrogative use, though integrated into a different grammatical system.

Likewise, in premodern texts we also find か inside the sentence following interrogative terms or adverbs, still carrying a dubitative or indefinite value.

For example, the Man’yōshū contains expressions such as 「…帰れとか…」, where とか (already written at the time in man’yōgana) conveys poetic uncertainty or supposition.

These early attestations confirm that the indefinite use of か is not a recent or colloquial phenomenon, but has been an integral part of Japanese grammar for at least 1,300 years.

Over time, the particle か has shown remarkable functional continuity, while adapting to the historical development of Japanese.

During the medieval stages of the language (Middle Japanese), the use of か expanded into subordinate clauses as well, introducing indirect questions (“whether / if…”), a function that partly survives today in constructions such as 「…かどうか」 (“whether … or not”) and in interrogative subordinate clauses with か (for example 「行くか知らない」 – “I don’t know whether he will go.”).

Historically, scholars also observe a differentiation between か and another ancient interrogative particle, や.

In classical Japanese, や was often used for yes/no questions or exclamatory sentences, whereas か appeared more often with interrogative pronouns or in dubitative / rhetorical contexts.

Over the centuries, や gradually disappeared as an interrogative particle (surviving today only in fossilized expressions or dialects), while か remained the main interrogative and indefinite marker in modern Japanese as well.

This longevity suggests that the semantic core of か — the idea of possibility, open choice, or lack of certainty — has always played a central role in Japanese syntax.

A particularly interesting aspect of the historical development of か concerns the formation of indefinite pronouns.

As we have seen, the pattern “interrogative + か” was already productive in early Japanese.

Comparative linguistics notes that many East Asian languages (and not only East Asian ones) form indefinite pronouns by attaching particles or affixes to interrogative pronouns.

Japanese is no exception: the particle か became grammaticalized as an indefinite-forming suffix.

Historically, we may say that a form such as nani ka (literally “what + ka”) shifted from perhaps being a phrase-like structure (“what could it be?”, implying uncertainty) into a single lexicalized word (何か, “something”).

This grammaticalization of か is ancient and stable, to the point that native speakers today perceive expressions such as 誰か, 何か, いつか, and so on as lexical units (pronoun + enclitic), comparable to English “someone,” “something,” and similar forms, where the indefinite element is built directly into the word.

The exact origin of か in Proto-Japanese may have been linked to an interrogative enclitic (possibly related to similar interrogative particles found in related languages), but because there are no texts predating the eighth century, such reconstructions remain hypothetical.

What is certain, however, is that already in the earliest written sources か performed the same core functions we still see today, which strongly suggests that its roots are deeply embedded in the structure of the language.

Summary table

The following table summarizes the most common uses of か as a marker used to create indefinite expressions.

For the sake of offering an initial point of comparison, the table also includes other common uses of the particle か.

In this article we will not go into detail on those meanings, since the goal here is to analyze か specifically as a marker of indefiniteness (wh + か).

We will return to those other uses in a dedicated article, where they will be examined systematically.

Even from this overview, however, it becomes clear that か does not simply mark questions, but extends to a broader range of functions including indefiniteness, disjunction, approximation, and modal nuance.

In other words, starting from its original interrogative value, Japanese developed a more articulated system of expressions with different degrees of openness, uncertainty, and choice.

Examples

何か (nanika)

何か食べたいものがあれば、遠慮せずに言ってください。

部屋の中で何か変な音がしたような気がする。

どこか (dokoka)

週末はどこか静かな場所へ行って、ゆっくりしたい。

彼の話にはどこか納得できないところがある。

誰か (dareka)

誰かこの問題の解き方を説明してくれませんか。

誰かが後ろから私の名前を呼んだ気がした。

何人か (nan-nin ka)

会議には何人か欠席する人がいるらしい。

駅の前には何人かの観光客が写真を撮っていた。

いくつか (ikutsu ka)

この提案にはいくつか改善すべき点があると思う。

いくつか質問したいことがあるのですが、今よろしいでしょうか。

とか (toka)

休日は映画を見るとか、本を読むとかして過ごすことが多い。

会議では売上の話とか、新しい企画の話とかが中心になるだろう。

Conclusion

From a grammatical point of view, the particle か in its role as a marker of indefiniteness deliberately makes part of the sentence vague, indicating that something — an object, a person, a quantity, a choice, a reason, and so on — is left unspecified.

This indefiniteness may arise because the speaker does not know the precise information (for example “someone / something” because they do not know exactly who or what), or because they do not want to specify it or commit themselves to a definite statement (for example “so-and-so or someone like that”, “a sick family member or something along those lines”).

From a semantic point of view, the contribution of か is precisely that of signaling open possibilities, doubt, or non-specificity.

This unifying concept explains why uses that may seem different at first glance — questions, indefinite pronouns, indefinite lists — are in fact connected: in every case, there is something unknown or not yet determined involved.