45.1. Recipient objects and -ust
In ‘I gave the money to you,’ the subject, ‘I,’ is the agent, the one doing the action. The patient is ‘the money,’ the one undergoing the action. The participant receiving the action is ‘you.’ We will call this role the recipient.
I gave the money to you.
agent patient recipient
In English the recipient role is usually marked as the object of the preposition ‘to.’
In Klallam, unlike English, the recipient is never marked as the object of the preposition. In Klallam, the recipient is marked as the object of the verb. In this section you will learn the details of how this role is expressed in Klallam.
| ʔə́ŋaʔc cxʷ ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You give me the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔc cxʷ hay ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You folks give me the money.’ |
| ʔəŋaʔtúŋɬ cxʷ ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You give us the money.’ |
| ʔəŋaʔtúŋɬ cxʷ hay ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You folks give us the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔc cn ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘I give you the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔc st ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘We give you the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔc cn hay ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘I give you folks the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔc st hay ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘We give you folks the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔt cn ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘I give him/her/them the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔt st ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘We give him/her/them the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔt cxʷ ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You give him/her/them the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔt cxʷ hay ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘You folks give him/her/them the money.’ |
| ʔə́ŋaʔts ʔaʔ cə tálə. | ‘He/she/they gives/give him/her/them the money.’ |
| kʷiʔúst cn ʔaʔ cə qʷúʔ. | ‘I spilled the water on him/her/them.’ |
| kʷiʔúsc cn ʔaʔ cə qʷúʔ. | ‘I spilled the water on you.’ |
► 1 Compare this set of models with the models shown way back in §7.1. Notice that the objects and subjects are the same.
► 2 The verb ʔə́ŋaʔt ‘give’ works just like the verb kʷənáŋət ‘help’ shown in §7.1. There is just one important difference. Can you describe the difference?
► 3 The difference is in the role of the object suffix. In §7.1 the object of kʷənáŋət is the patient, the one undergoing the action. In these models here, with ʔə́ŋaʔt, the role of the object suffix is the recipient.
► 4 In Klallam, the recipient in an active sentence always is indicated as the direct object.
► 5 In sentences with both a recipient and a patient, the patient is always the object of the preposition ʔaʔ.
► 6 This layout of the first model, ‘You give me the money,’ shows the roles:
ʔə́ŋa‑c cxʷ ʔaʔ cə tálə.
root‑recipient agent patient
give‑me you the money
► 7 Let’s compare recipient patterns in Klallam to English to see how the two languages really differ. In English we can express the first model in two ways:
You give me the money.
You give the money to me.
► 8 In English, as these two sentences show, the recipient can come right after the verb, like an object, or it can be the object of the preposition ‘to.’
► 9 In English, the patient (‘the money’ in these sentences) either follows the recipient or follows the verb.
► 10 In Klallam there is no choice. In Klallam the recipient is the object of the verb and never the object of the preposition.
► 11 With recipient verbs (like ‘give’) in English, the patient is never the object of a preposition. With recipient verbs in Klallam, the patient is always the object of the preposition.
► 12 Here are some other verbs that take a recipient object: ʔaʔkʷúst ‘teach to someone’; ʔaʔyít ‘lend (to use and return) to someone’; kʷiʔúst ‘spill, throw liquid on someone’; ɬitúst ‘sprinkle, splash on someone’; q̓əyúst ‘pay to someone’; q̓ʷəŋəyúst ‘lend (something that cannot be returned) to someone’; səmúst ‘sell to someone’; t̓iq̓úst ‘wave to someone’; yəcúst ‘tell, give news to someone’; x̣ʷiʔam̓úst ‘tell a fairy tale to someone.’
► 13 Note that most of these words end in ‑úst. This is a suffix that makes a recipient verb from another verb. For example, kʷə́y̓ means ‘spill, capsize.’ When ‑úst is added, it becomes kʷiʔúst, as in kʷiʔúsc cn ‘I spilled on you.’ Note that ‘you’ here is the recipient. The -úst makes it a recipient verb.
► 14 Not all of these verbs with ‑úst have roots that are used elsewhere. Two others are x̣ʷiʔam̓úst, which is related to sx̣ʷiʔám̓ ‘story, fairy tale,’ and yəcúst, which is related to syə́cəm ‘news.’
► 15 An interesting recipient verb is səmúst ‘sell,’ which is related to sə́miʔ ‘blanket.’ The connection is that in the old days blankets were a form of currency. So to ‘blanket something to someone’ meant to give something to someone in exchange for blankets, in other words to ‘sell something to someone.’
► 16 A short explanation of the difference between ʔaʔyít and q̓ʷəŋəyúst: ʔaʔyít is used for lending a thing like a canoe, which is used and returned. q̓ʷəŋəyúst is used for lending a thing like money or food, which aren’t directly returnable. ʔaʔyít, incidentally, also means ‘put away, store for later use.’
 | ʔaʔkʷúsc či ʔaʔ cə nəxʷsƛ̓ay̓əmúcən. | ‘Teach me the Klallam language.’ |
 | x̣ʷə́ŋ u cxʷ ʔiʔ qʷáy ‘nəŋə́nəŋənaʔ’. | ‘Can you say “nəŋə́nəŋənaʔ”?’ |
| ʔáwə. mán̓ ʔuʔ ƛ̓éʔ. | ‘No. It is too hard.’ |
| p̓áʔət či. | ‘Try it!’ |