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The following sentence comes from Duolingo:
Kiom da gekuzoj vi havas?
translates to:
How many cousins do you have?
da means of. Why is it used in this question? Is the question grammatically correct without it? It is not like I have a list of cousins (listo da gekuzoj).
Da and de both mean "of". Da is strictly used for quantities and measures. De is for possession and other uses.
Without the use of da here, there would be no relation between kiom and gekuzoj.
da
Prep. uzata por rilatigi du vortojn aŭ sintagmojn, el kiuj la unua esprimas mezuron (kvanton, pezon, longon, volumenon k.a.) de la dua
Preposition used to relate two words - the first expresses a measurement (quantity, weight, length, volume) of the second.
Examples:
Kiom is used without da in questions such as Kiom estas la duoblo de 6?, or Kiom estas la tempo?. It can be translated as "how much" followed by a numerical expression (algebraic, or of time): "How much is the double of 6?", "How much is the time" (not very elegant translation!)
Cousins are not a numerical expressions, so you add da to turn it into one: "How much of cousins do you have?" So kiom da is required to make sense, as it means "How much of".
(Examples from RosxReVo iOS app)
