46.1. Reflexive and inchoative -ct/-cút
| ɬíc̓ct | ‘cut oneself’ |
| k̓ʷəncút | ‘look at oneself’ |
| c̓čə́ct | ‘wake up’ |
| hiyíct | ‘come to life’ |
| čqcút | ‘get big’ |
| ŋə́n̓ct | ‘become many’ |
| sɬániʔct | ‘become a woman’ |
| swə́y̓qaʔct | ‘become a man’ |
| sqáx̣aʔct | ‘turn into a dog’ |
| sŋáʔnətct | ‘turning to stone’ |
► 1 It would be a very good idea to review the reflexive use of ‑ct/‑cút in §11.1 and the reflexive use of the middle ‑əŋ in §44.1.
► 2 The word ‘reflexive’ is related to the word ‘reflect,’ as a mirror reflects oneself. Any grammatical item that refers to the ‘self’ is reflexive. The first two models here show the reflexive use of the ‑ct/‑cút suffix that you saw in §11.1. The rest of the models have the ‑ct/‑cút suffix, but the meaning does not involve ‘self.’ Look at those eight models and try to think of their common meaning.
► 3 The term for the meaning the last eight models share is ‘inchoative.’ They all refer to a change of state—‘becoming.’ The word ‘inchoative’ is pronounced [inkówətəv], by the way.
► 4 The translation ‘become’ is used for it sometimes, but ‘turn into’ is another good translation. Probably the most common is simply ‘get,’ as in the model ‘get big.’ Sometimes it has no direct English translation, as in the model ‘wake up,’ which is naturally a ‘change of state’ from sleeping.
► 5 The change of state meaning of ‑ct/‑cút typically refers to an internal change. That is, the change happens on its own and is not deliberately caused by an external force. So a word like čqcút ‘get big’ means something gets big by itself, as, for example, a child growing up. There is a prefix txʷaʔ‑ that also means ‘become’ but is not limited to internal change (§49).
► 6 Many languages around the world (but not English) use the same grammatical means to mark reflexive and inchoative. The connection between ‘self’ and ‘change of state’ in Klallam is that the ‘change of state’ is happening to oneself. Note that in the eight models with the inchoative translation, the change refers to something that happens by itself, on its own.
► 7 You should be able to recognize the stem in each of the models. They are all words you have seen before. The ‑ct/‑cút suffix can attach to a verb, as in the first four models, to an adjective, as in the next two models, or to a noun, as in the last four models. The last model, by the way, is based on the noun sŋánt ‘stone’ with the ‘actual’ infix (§42.1).
► 8 So how do you know if the suffix should be translated with ‘self’ as a reflexive or with ‘become’ as an inchoative? It will be translated as reflexive ‘self’ only if the stem has a strong two-participant meaning (review §44 on participants, if you need to), with one participant acting on or toward another. The stems for the first two, meaning ‘cut’ and ‘look at,’ have necessarily two participants—someone or something to cut and get cut, someone or something to look at and to be looked at. So the first two are necessarily translated as reflexive. The rest have no necessary two-participant meaning; each of the other eight can be accomplished by one participant alone (in the case of ŋə́n̓ct ‘become many,’ a group is seen as one participant and not acting on another).
► 9 Some words can be translated either as reflexive or as inchoative and the overall meaning is the same. For example, the second model, with a first person subject, would be c̓čə́ct cn and could be translated either as ‘I woke up’ (inchoative) or ‘I woke myself up’ (reflexive).
► 10 When do we use ‑ct or ‑cút? First of all ‑ct is about five times more common than ‑cút. The reason ‑cút is less common is that it usually occurs only on zero stems, which never take stress (see §31 to remind yourself about zero stems). One exception is shown in the second model—k̓ʷən is not a zero stem.
► 11 One more thing that must be mentioned about the form of the ‑ct/‑cút suffix is that, like the passive, it causes the stem vowel to shift. See §31 to review shifting vowels.
 | ʔiʔcút cə nəsqáxaʔ. | ‘My dog got better.’ |
 | ʔəstúŋət ʔay̓. | ‘What happened?’ |
| ɬk̓ʷíct ʔaʔ cə k̓ʷúyəkʷ. | ‘He hooked himself with a fishhook.’ |
| ʔanəná! syaʔyáʔiščən. | ‘My goodness! The poor thing.’ |