Particle for marking subordinate Wh-clauses

Hey there,

in a copy of an old JLPT4 exam (2009-2), I came across the sentence below (my formatting)
[sono hon-o doko-de katta]-wa oboete imasu ka

While my learning materials explain relative clauses, they do not describe how Wh-clauses can be used as complements. So, based on what's available in my books, I would have assumed this sentence should read:
*[sono hon-o doko-de katta]-to oboete imasu ka

Obviously this construction will only occur with experiential verbs. I was under the impression that all such verbs used "-to" to mark their complement clause. Is this not the case, are there some that use "-to" and some that use "-wa"? Or does it have to do with the complement being a Wh-clause?

Thanks

(to avoid confusion, by "Wh-clause" I mean clauses that contain question words)

In the first place, "[sono hon-o doko-de katta]-wa oboete imasu ka" is wrong. Look the sentence again more carefully.

Holy jumpin, toritoribe, you're right! I misread the answer key, it actually should read:
[sono hon-o doko-de katta]-ka oboete imasu ka

My inability to read aside, I still would have expected this to use "-to". Using "-ka" makes sense I suppose, as a complete Wh-clause embedded in place of an object, but... my question is still: how do you know which verbs take "-to"? Is the difference that a verb like oboeru expects an object as complement, while verbs like omou necessarily take a clause as complement, marking them all with "-to"?

If that is the case with oboeru, what happens when the complement is not Wh-? For example, "I remember to brush my teeth every day":
*mainichi ha-o migaku-[???] oboete imasu

In that case you need to nominalize the phrase with either の or こと, making it function as a noun. Then tack on an を/
は/が as appropriate and you're good.

frog said:

Holy jumpin, toritoribe, you're right! I misread the answer key, it actually should read:
[sono hon-o doko-de katta]-ka oboete imasu ka

My inability to read aside, I still would have expected this to use "-to". Using "-ka" makes sense I suppose, as a complete Wh-clause embedded in place of an object, but... my question is still: how do you know which verbs take "-to"? Is the difference that a verb like oboeru expects an object as complement, while verbs like omou necessarily take a clause as complement, marking them all with "-to"?

If that is the case with oboeru, what happens when the complement is not Wh-? For example, "I remember to brush my teeth every day":
*mainichi ha-o migaku-[???] oboete imasu

Click to expand...

'to' has a meaning of quotes in the case you're talking about. In this question, the "ka" is expressing a question. "Do you remember where you bought that book?"

It's hard to boil down the grammar to a simple point, since it works differently than English. In English, 'where' can be considered part of a question, an indirect question or as a relative adverb, but your example is an example of an indirect question. "I wonder where..." "Could you tell me where..." "I forgot where..."