Correct meaning of　何が怖いのか?


I was looking for some Evangelion merch on red bubble when I stumbled upon a
cup on which was written the following japanese phrase:

> 何が怖いのか?

With the english translation below it, being "What are you afraid of?" Which
isn't exactly how my non-expert self would translate it. In fact, I would
translate it very roughly like **" Is anything scary?"**, because to me the
structure of the phrase looks like **何** + subject marker が + adjective **怖い**
+ doubt particle の and question transformer か. "What are you afraid of?" for
me would be something like "怖いって何ですか" or something like that, but I might be
missing some kind of rule/having some kind of misconception, since I'm a
relative beginner.




At the word level, you have identified everything correctly. However, 怖い is an
adjective that means either "scared" or "scary" depending on the context, and
if someone sees this sentence without any context, they usually take this 怖い
as "scared" (or "afraid"). In other words, you usually imagine someone who is
being afraid by seeing this sentence in isolation. Please read my previous
answer here: [Different meanings of
こわい](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/66387/5010)

Depending on the context, the same sentence _could_ mean "What (part) is scary
(about this thing)?", which could be rephrased as "Is anything scary (about
this thing)?" or "Nothing is scary (about this thing)!" Simply, an objective
sentence like this is less likely to appear on an Evangelion merch.

On the other hand, 怖いって何ですか sounds like "Fear? What is it?", "What is the
definition of being scary/scared?" or something like this. It's about the
abstract concept of 怖い itself.




At the word level, you have identified everything correctly. However, 怖い is an
adjective that means either "scared" or "scary" depending on the context, and
if someone sees this sentence without any context, they usually take this 怖い
as "scared" (or "afraid"). In other words, you usually imagine someone who is
being afraid by seeing this sentence in isolation. Please read my previous
answer here: [Different meanings of
こわい](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/66387/5010)

Depending on the context, the same sentence _could_ mean "What (part) is scary
(about this thing)?", which could be rephrased as "Is anything scary (about
this thing)?" or "Nothing is scary (about this thing)!" Simply, an objective
sentence like this is less likely to appear on an Evangelion merch.

On the other hand, 怖いって何ですか sounds like "Fear? What is it?", "What is the
definition of being scary/scared?" or something like this. It's about the
abstract concept of 怖い itself.

