Why does the か come before です in this question?

Question

I'm looking through a book of go problems, and ran across the following sentence accompanied by the problem diagram:

隅の黒一子が次にアタリですが、ここをどう考えるかです

A rough translation is relatively simple, along the lines of "Black's single stone in the corner is 1 move away from atari (technical term), what do you think about this position?" (By implication: how should black play to survive?)

The go problem is relatively simple. The bit that confused me was the か landing before the です in this question. What does this mean and how does it affect the sentence?

Note that I did receive an answer from TsuyohiIto in chat a few days ago. — jkerian, Oct 01 '12 at 19:25

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '12 at 02:42

4

You know that you can use "koto" or "no" or "mono" to nominalize a proposition, don't you? Well, you can with "ka" as well, when the proposition is a question, direct or indirect.

For example:

いつ行くか教えてください. "Tell me when you leave." (Which is nothing else than "Xを教えてください" but where you drop the を because of か.)
ポイントは、いつ行くかです。"The point is when you leave." (Which is nothing else than "XはYです".)

answered Oct 02 '12 at 02:42

Axioplase

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You don't have to drop the を because of the か. – istrasci Oct 02 '12 at 15:18
@istrasci: actually, I think I remember being corrected and told to remove the を in similar sentences… – Axioplase Oct 04 '12 at 03:43

herby · Answer 2 · 2012-10-02T10:20:45.557

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I think this may be the normal use of か inside the sentence, where it then represents "set of answers to that question" (better explained here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/question, section "「か」 used in relative clauses").

edited Oct 02 '12 at 10:20

answered Oct 01 '12 at 19:27

herby

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 01 '12 at 19:43

It's very common to say 「~するかだ」. It would be easier for you to get the meaning by inserting 「が重要/問題」 after か.

隅の黒一子が次にアタリですが、ここをどう考えるかです

隅の黒一子が次にアタリですが、ここをどう考えるかが重要/問題です

The translation would be like "Regarding the black piece in the corner which becomes Atari in the next move, it is important how you think here."

Why does the か come before です in this question?

3 Answers3