The pumpkin riddle.

Factual Questions
1

My father told me a riddle when i was a child that didn’t ‘click’ mentally, for lack of a better word. Here is the riddle as presented to me:

** 'If a pumpkin is a pumpkin, and if everyone has what a pumpkin has, what has a pumpkin?'**

 I didn't even have a clue what the hell he was asking. I was only a kid so I was used to not understanding everything I heard. My father, on the other hand, seemed exasperated with my comprehensive shortcomings. He would repeat the riddle with various inflections.
'If a pumkin is a *pumpkin*, and a *everyone* has what a pumkin has, *what* has a pumpkin?'
or
'*If* a pumpkin is a pumpkin, *and* everyone has what a pumpkin has.......What......*has* .......a pumpkin?'
When I gave up on the riddle, he told me the answer. 

As a teenager he asked me the long forgotten riddle. I knew the answer as soon as he said 'If a pumpkin is a pumpkin......'. I still didn't quite understand the riddle though.  
Another decade has passed and the riddle came up again. I realized that I am no closer to understanding the riddle than the first time I heard it. 
   I could sleep better if someone could make sense of the riddle.
2

What’s the answer? Put it in a spoiler box, of course.

3

Isn’t this what Spock told the robots to make their heads explode?

I have no idea what he’s looking for…I second the motion for the answer to be posted. Perhaps then we can make some sense out of it.

4

a name.

5

Okay, that makes sense. Lemme rephrase it to make it more comprehensible:

If a pumpkin is a “pumpkin,” and everyone has what a pumpkin has, what is it that a pumpkin has?

Frankly, I think it’s a lame riddle, but at least i understand what it’s getting at. The “what has a pumpkin” phrasing is (intentionally?) misleading, since it sounds as though “pumpkin” is the object of the verb, not the subject.

Daniel

6

Are we sure it’s not some sick inbreeding joke?