16.2. Comparative construction
| ʔə́c nuʔčə́q txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ nə́kʷ. | ‘I am bigger than you.’ |
| nə́kʷ nuʔčə́q txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ ʔə́c. | ‘You are bigger than me.’ |
| níɬ nuʔčə́q cə píšpš txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ cə sqáx̣aʔ. | ‘The cat is bigger than the dog.’ |
► 1 This construction has several distinguishing features:
(1) It always begins with a focus pronoun.
(2) The quality word has the prefix nuʔ‑.
(3) The word txʷʔúx̣ʷ comes before a prepositional phrase.
► 2 The general pattern for the comparative construction is:
FOCUS nuʔQUALITY X txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ Y
Compare this pattern with the English pattern:
X is QUALITYer than Y
► 3 A focus pronoun is a key element and the first element of the comparative construction. See §15 to remind yourself about the focus pronouns. Here is a chart to help your memory:
| Singular | Plural | |||
| 1 | ʔə́c | ‘I’ | ɬníŋɬ | ‘we’ |
| 2 | nə́kʷ | ‘you’ | nə́kʷ hay | ‘you folks’ |
| 3 | níɬ | ‘he, she, it’ | níɬ | ‘they’ |
ʔə́c / ɬníŋɬ / nə́kʷ nuʔQUALITY txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ Y
The focus pronoun is the first thing being compared.
► 5 In this construction the question words cán and stáŋ count as focus pronouns. So you can make questions like these:
cán nuʔčə́q txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ ʔə́c. ‘Who is bigger than me?’
stáŋ nuʔčə́q txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ cə nəsqáx̣aʔ. ‘What is bigger than my dog?’
► 6 When X, the thing being compared, is anything but ‘I,’ ‘you,’ or ‘we,’ use the níɬ focus pronoun.
► 7 In the comparative construction you can think of the prefix nuʔ‑ as equivalent to the English ‘‑er’ suffix, as in ‘bigger.’
► 8 The prefix nuʔ‑ actually has a broader meaning than ‘‑er.’ When used outside of the comparative construction, nuʔ‑ means ‘kind of, like.’ So, for example, nuʔčə́q cn means ‘I’m kind of big.’
► 9 In the comparative construction you can think of txʷʔúx̣ʷ as being equivalent to ‘than’ in the English comparative construction, as in ‘he’s bigger than me.’
► 10 Outside of the comparative construction, the word txʷʔúx̣ʷ means ‘go toward.’ For example, txʷʔúx̣ʷ cn ʔaʔč̓ixʷícən means ‘I go toward Port Angeles.’ Compare this to ʔúx̣ʷ cn ʔaʔč̓ixʷícən ‘I go to Port Angeles’ (see §23.1). You can see that txʷʔúx̣ʷ has the root ʔúx̣ʷ ‘go to,’ and the prefix txʷ‑, which basically means something like ‘become.’ So ‘become’ plus ‘go to’ is ‘go toward.’
► 11 In English there are a variety of ways one can get the comparative idea across: ‘I am bigger than you,’ ‘I am big; you are not,’ ‘I am big; you are small,’ and so on. There are also a variety of ways in Klallam. These alternate ways are probably more common in Klallam than the equivalents are in English:
Negative comparative:
čə́q cn, ʔáwə c x̣ʷənáŋ ʔaʔ nə́kʷ. ‘I’m bigger than you.’
This means literally ‘I am big, not like you.’
Opposite comparative:
čə́q cn ʔiʔ ƛ̓úƛ̓aʔ cxʷ. ‘I’m bigger than you.’
This means literally ‘I am big and you are small.’
► 12 Here’s a surprise fact about the comparative construction. The txʷʔúx̣ʷ is optional. In any of the examples given so far, you could leave out the txʷʔúx̣ʷ and the meaning would be the same. Compare the following with the models:
ʔə́c nuʔčə́q ʔaʔ nə́kʷ. ‘I am bigger than you.’
níɬ nuʔčə́q cə píšpš ʔaʔ cə sqáx̣aʔ. ‘The cat is bigger than the dog.’
Both of these are just as acceptable as the models. The only difference is that these two lack the txʷʔúx̣ʷ.
 | x̣ʷə́ŋ cn x̣ʷnáŋ ʔaʔ nə́kʷ. | ‘I’m as fast as you are.’ |
 | ʔáwə. cəʔít ʔuʔ ʔə́c nuʔx̣ʷə́ŋ txʷʔúx̣ʷ ʔaʔ nə́kʷ. | ‘No. I’m really faster than you.’ |
| nəxʷskʷənkʷánəŋət caʔ st. | ‘We’ll race.’ |
| ʔáwə. mán̓ ʔuʔ x̣ə́ɬ cə nəsx̣ə́naʔ. | ‘No. My leg really hurts.’ |