SENĆOŦEN: A Grammar of the Saanich Language Main Menu Contents Preface Acknowledgments PART 1 Introduction The organization of this grammar The Place of SENĆOŦEN in the Salishan Language Family Basics of the SENĆOŦEN word Useful phrases PART 2 The SENĆOŦEN Alphabet and Sounds Consonants Vowels and Diphthongs Notes on Pronunciation PART 3 SENĆOŦEN Grammatical Patterns 1 Transitive and Intransitive Verbs 2 Past and Future Tense 3 Basic Speech Acts 4 Nouns and Articles 5 Possessive Pronouns 6 Adjectives 7 Basic Word Order 8 The Preposition 9 Serial Verbs 10 Auxiliaries 11 Conjunction: ‘And/with’ and ‘but/without’ 12 No and Not 13 Self and Each Other 14 More Negative Words 15 Questions: ‘Who?,’ ‘What?,’ ‘Someone,’ ‘Something’ 16 Questions: ‘Do what?,’ ‘Say what?,’ and ‘Which one?’ 17 Subordinate Subjects in Questions 18 Questions: ‘Whose?’ 19 Every, All, Any, and Some 20 Comparison 21 Questions: ‘When?’ 22 Numbers 23 Time Expressions 24 Time Prefixes 25 Questions: ‘Where?’ 26 Location Expressions 27 Paths 28 Questions: ‘How?’ and ‘How much?’ 29 Adverbial Expressions 30 Conditional Clauses 31 Should, Must, Ought to, Want to 32 Object Pronouns 33 Passive 34 Strong, Weak, and Zero Stems 35 Participant Roles and Middle Voice 36 Recipient, Beneficiary, and Other Participants 37 Lexical Suffixes 38 Questions: ‘Why?’ 39 Because 40 Cause 41 Collective Plural 42 The Actual Aspect 43 State, Result, and Duration 44 Activity Suffixes 45 Reflexive, Inchoative, and Noncontrol Middle 46 Ȼ Clauses 47 Relative Clauses 48 Speech Act Modifiers 49 Possessed Verbs 50 Summary of Particles with Ȼ 51 So Then ... 52 Reporting Verbs and Direct Quotes 53 Indirect Quotes 54 Verbal Prefixes 55 Nominalizing Prefixes 56 Adverbial Prefixes 57 More Demonstrative Articles 58 Objects of Intent and Emotion 59 More Reduplication Patterns 60 Interjections 61 Politeness Expressions 62 Rare Prefixes and Suffixes 63 A Fully Annotated Text 64 Texts to Annotate Appendix A: Technical Description of SENĆOŦEN Sounds Appendix B: SENĆOŦEN Pronouns Appendix C: Demonstrative Articles Appendix D: SENĆOŦEN Kin Terms Appendix E: Index to Technical Linguistic Topics Appendix F: Vocabulary Bibliography SENĆOŦEN Dictionary Basic SENĆOŦEN Dictionary without root and affix indexes

12.5. ‘None,’ ‘nothing,’ and ‘not exist’

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Models
1)EWENE.‘There’s none/there’s nothing/it doesn’t exist.’
2)EWENE SE¸.‘There won’t be any/there will be nothing’
3)EWENE ¸Á.‘Is there nothing? / Isn’t there anything?’
4)EWENE YÁ¸.‘Nothing went.’
5)EWENE TÁLE.‘There’s no money.’
6)EWENE NE TÁLE.‘I have no money.’
7)EWENE LE¸ NE TÁLE.‘I had no money.’
8)EWENE NE SXĆIT.‘I don’t know it.’
9)EWENE SÁN.‘There’s nobody.’
10)EWENE STÁṈ.‘There’s nothing.’
11)W̱U¸ÁNE STÁṈ.‘There’s nothing yet.’

‣ 1 The word NI¸ in SENĆOŦEN means ‘exist, come into existence, be born, be some.’ When this combines with EWE, it forms a special compound: EWENE, which means ‘nothing’ or ‘none’ or ‘not exist.’ When it combines with W̱U¸Á ‘not yet’ (§12.4) it forms W̱U¸ÁNE ‘nothing yet’ or ‘none yet’ or ‘not exist yet.’
‣ 2 As you can see from the first three models, the word EWENE is a verb meaning ‘to be nothing’ or ‘to not exist.’ Note that it is stressed on the first vowel, as shown in red in model 1.
‣ 3 The next major word following EWENE in a sentence can be a verb, as in the fourth model or a noun, as in the fifth model. When followed by a verb the best translation is usually ‘nothing’ or ‘there’s nothing that.’ When followed by a noun, the best translation is usually ‘there is no.’
‣ 4 The model translated ‘I had no money’ (model 7) shows that the speech act particles like past tense follow the first word, as usual.
‣ 5 When the word following EWENE has a possessive pronoun on it, the translation often includes ‘have no,’ as in EWENE NE SḴAXE¸ ‘I have no dog.’ This could be translated literally as ‘There is no “my dog”.’
‣ 6 Models 8, 9, and 10 are very common sentences. You know the sentence XĆIT SEN ‘I know it’ (if not, reread §1.2). Now you know how to say ‘I don’t know it.’ This is a very useful sentence in the classroom. Even if you don’t know what the teacher is asking, you can say EWENE NE SXĆIT and at least still be speaking SENĆOŦEN.
‣ 7 XĆIT is certainly a verb. It is, in fact, a transitive verb. But when it follows EWENE, it must take the S- prefix that turns it into a noun just as IȽEN ‘eat’ becomes S¸IȽEN ‘food’ when the S- noun prefix is added to it. We can translate it literally then as ‘There is no “my knowing it”.’
‣ 8 Models 9 and 10 and variations of them are very common in SENĆOŦEN. They show up frequently in stories in contexts like QENNES I¸ EWENE STÁṈ ‘He looked and there was nothing.’
‣ 9 In models 9 and 10, two new important words are introduced—SÁN and STÁṈ. SÁN can often be translated as ‘someone,’ and STÁṈ can be translated as ‘something.’ They are most commonly translated as question words ‘who’ and ‘what.’ These are covered in detail in §15.
‣ 10 Model 11 shows that W̱U¸ÁNE ‘not exist yet’ has the same grammatical pattern as EWENE.
 
EWENE ¸Á TÁLES TŦE EN¸ SĆÁ¸ĆE¸?‘Doesn’t your friend have money?’
EWENE NE SXĆIT.‘I don’t know.’
ĆȺ E LE¸ TŦE EN¸ SĆÁ¸ĆE¸?‘Did your friend work?’
EWENE NE ŚW̱HÁ¸EQ.‘I don’t remember.’

12.5A. Which of these sentences is ungrammatical? If it is ungrammatical, explain why it is. If it is grammatical, translate the sentence. If you see a word you do not know, look it up in the SENĆOŦEN dictionary.
1. EWENE NE SĆÁ¸ĆE¸.
2. EWENE SEN TÁLE.
3. EWENE SE¸ IȽEN.
4. EWENE SE¸ S¸IȽEN.
5. EWENE NE S¸IȽEN.
6. EWENE SQENNEW̱S.
7. EWENE ¸Á SW̱ EN¸ TÁLE.
8. EWENE LE¸ NE Á¸LEṈ.
9. EWENE NE SĆȺ.
10. EWENE LE¸ SXĆIT ȽTE.
12.5B. Make up four more sentences using EWENE.

 

This page has paths:

  1. 12 No and Not Montler, et al.

This page has tags:

  1. 19.2. ‘Some’ Montler, et al.
  2. 55 Nominalizing Prefixes Montler, et al.
  3. 11.2. ‘But’ and ‘without’ Montler, et al.
  4. 31 Should, Must, Ought to, Want to Montler, et al.

Contents of this tag:

  1. 1.2. Transitive subject pronouns
  2. 15 Questions: ‘Who?,’ ‘What?,’ ‘Someone,’ ‘Something’
  3. 12.4. ‘Not yet’