SENĆOŦEN: A Grammar of the Saanich Language

10 Auxiliaries

The SENĆOŦEN auxiliaries are two limited classes of words that come before the main verb of the sentence. They are linked to the main verb by one of the small words U¸ or I¸.   Some of the SENĆOŦEN auxiliaries are kind of like the words that are usually called ‘adverbs’ in English, and some of them are like what we call ‘auxiliary verbs’ or ‘helping verbs.’ 

There are no real SENĆOŦEN adverbs like ‘slowly’ in English ‘he walked slowly.’ To express this idea in SENĆOŦEN you must use a complex sentence. That kind of adverbial expression is covered in §29. In this section, you will learn about the other type of word that in English is usually also called an adverb. This other type of word modifies qualities and indicates the intensity of events. We call words of this other type intensifiers. These words modify (and usually intensify) some quality, as in ‘she is very nice,’ ‘that tree is really old,’ or ‘he was exactly right.’ In SENĆOŦEN, these intensifiers function as auxiliary verbs to modify the main verb.

Eleven auxiliaries have been identified in SENĆOŦEN. These important little words are worth memorizing. They are common in SENĆOŦEN speech. You probably have been using some of them already in phrases you have memorized.
 

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