41.5. Combining speech act particles
| kʷánəŋət u q yaʔ cxʷ kʷaʔčaʔ hay. | ‘Would you folks then have run?’ |
► 1 As the model shows, speech act particles can be used in combination.
► 2 Looking closely at the model, you can see the meaning of each of the particles in the English translation:
u makes it a yes/no question
q is ‘hypothetical’—‘would’ in the translation
yaʔ makes it past tense
cxʷ is ‘you’
kʷaʔčaʔ makes it a consequence—translated here as ‘then’
hay makes the ‘you’ plural
► 3 There are six particles in the model. Six is the maximum number of speech act particles possible in a simple sentence.
► 4 There are restrictions on which speech act particles can be used together in a sentence. For example, you cannot use both yaʔ ‘past’ and caʔ ‘future.’
► 5 There are restrictions on the order of speech act particles when they combine. For example, if u ‘yes/no question’ is used, it must come before any others.
► 6 We can think of the positions of words in a sentence as slots. In Klallam the first slot usually holds the main verb or intensifier. The second slot holds the speech act particles.
► 7 The thirty-one speech act particles can be divided into six groups based on position and combination restrictions. These six groups form six position slots within the set of speech act particles.
► 8 The following chart shows the six groups in the order in which they follow the first word of the sentence.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| u ‘yes/no’ | č̓ ‘hearsay’ | yaʔ ‘past’ | cn ‘I’ | kʷə ‘informing’ | hay ‘you pluralizer’ |
| či ‘command’ | q / qɬ ‘hypothetical’ | caʔ ‘future’ | cxʷ ‘you’ | kʷaʔčaʔ ‘therefore’ | |
| yəxʷ ‘guess’ | caʔn ‘I future’ | st ‘we’ | kʷi ‘suggest’ | ||
| iq ‘wish’ | šaʔ ‘obvious’ | ʔuč ‘request’ | |||
| q̓ ‘emphatic’ | ʔay̓ ‘limited’ | ||||
| ʔuʔčə ‘presume’ | čtə ‘probably’ | ||||
| ta ‘contrary’ | |||||
| wuʔ ‘wonder’ | |||||
| ʔučtə ‘expected’ | |||||
| čakʷi ‘usual’ | |||||
| ʔaʔčtay ‘speculate’ | |||||
| kʷiči ‘independent’ | |||||
| kʷɬaʔ ‘inform fem.’ | |||||
| kʷɬaʔčaʔ ‘therefore fem.’ | |||||
| hakʷ ‘why not’ |
► 9 What this chart shows is that, just as you cannot use both yaʔ and caʔ in a single slot, you cannot use, for example, both č̓ and q or both ʔay̓ and ʔuč. You cannot use more than one particle from each slot.
► 10 There are a few other restrictions on how speech act particles can combine. Here is a list of them:
1. When ta is used with cn, the verb must have the prefix nuʔ‑ ‘kind of, like’ (see §16.2). So, for example, nuʔhiyáʔ cn ta ‘I thought I went’ is good, but not *hiyáʔ cn ta.
2. The subjects cn, cxʷ, and st cannot be used with wuʔ.
3. When č̓ is used with kʷi, the subjects cn, cxʷ, and st cannot be used.
4. There are several combinations that do not occur because they just make no sense. For example, či with čtə makes no sense. What could hiyáʔ či čtə possibly mean? ‘Probably go!’? In fact, the only other speech act particle that can occur with či is the second person plural marker hay.
 | snúʔnəkʷ č̓ yaʔ. | ‘It was apparently a ghost.’ |
 | sə́y̓siʔ u q cxʷ kʷaʔčə hay? | ‘So were you folks scared?’ |
| ʔáwə q̓ə. | ‘Not at all!’ |
| ʔaʔstúʔŋət kʷaʔčə ʔaʔ kʷi ʔən̓sʔáwə c sə́y̓siʔ hay? | ‘Why weren’t you folks scared?’ |
| ƛ̓áy st kʷi ʔuʔ snúʔnəkʷ. | ‘We’re ghosts, too.’ |