Use of cuál...

Question

A comment by Carlos on a thread (he wrote "¿Cuál secreto?") prompts me to ask this. Our text (En español) says that cuál cannot be directly followed by a noun. ¿Cuál de los libros prefieres? is okay, but ¿Cuál libro prefieres? should instead be ¿Qué libro prefieres?

I don't recall learning that in school. Comments?

Answer 1

From what I understand, it cannot follow a noun because "cuál" (which) denotes a selection, while "qué"(what) is more general; thus, ¿Cuál de los libros prefieres?/ Which of the books do you prefer? and ¿Qué libro prefieres? for What book do you prefer?.

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I believe ¿Cuál secreto? (Which secret?) can function as long as you give context beforehand, such as if you and your friend tell each other secrets a lot and you tell that friend that you told one of the secrets and may be that friend would ask "Which secret?" which implies the selection of all the secrets told.

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This is just my thinking on the matter. Maybe someone who is fluent can answer it better... It would probably help if you gave some context. Could you post the link to the thread where Carlos said that?

Goodness. How would I find the thread? It was earlier today but I don't remember what it was about. - tennismom, Mar 25, 2010