17 Subordinate Subjects in Questions
Who ran? What ran?
Who will go? What will go?
Who saw me? What saw me?
Who dove? What dove?
Who will run away? What will run away?
Who broke it? What broke it?
Who will lift me? What will lift me?
They have several things in common.
First, they each begin with a question word.
Second, the question word in each is followed by a verb or verb phrase: ‘ran,’ ‘will go,’ ‘saw,’ ‘laughed,’ ‘dove,’ ‘broke,’ ‘will lift,’ ‘run away.’
Third, and most interesting, is that the question word in each refers to the subject of the verb. Each question asks who or what did it, not who or what something was done to.
Compare these related questions and answers. The ‘what’ in this sentence refers to ‘it’ as the subject of ‘will lift’:
‘What will lift me?’ ‘It will lift me.’
The ‘what’ in the following sentence refers to ‘it’ as the object of ‘will lift’:
‘What will I lift?’ ‘I will lift it.’
In other words, we have looked at questions in SENĆOŦEN like ‘what will lift me?’ but none like ‘what will I lift?’ In the sentence ‘what will lift me?’ the ‘what’ refers to the subject of ‘lift,’ the thing doing the lifting. In ‘what will I lift?’ the ‘what’ refers to the object of ‘lift,’ the thing being lifted.
When the question word refers to the object, SENĆOŦEN uses a special set of subject pronouns. We call these the subordinate subject pronouns. Compare these with the main subject pronouns introduced in §1. The subordinate subject pronoun set is also used in situations that will be covered in later sections.
Subordinate subject pronouns
| Singular | Plural | |||
| 1 | ‑EN | ‘I’ | ‑EȽTE | ‘we’ |
| 2 | ‑EW̱ | ‘you’ | ‑EW̱ HÁLE | ‘you folks’ |
| 3 | ‑ES | ‘he, she, it’ | ‑ES | ‘they’ |
Models
| 1) | SÁN OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEN? | ‘Who do I lift?’ |
| 2) | STÁṈ OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEN? | ‘What do I lift?’ |
| 3) | SÁN OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEȽTE? | ‘Who do we lift?’ |
| 4) | STÁṈ OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEȽTE? | ‘What do we lift?’ |
| 5) | SÁN OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEW̱? | ‘Who do you lift?’ |
| 6) | STÁṈ OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEW̱? | ‘What do you lift?’ |
| 7) | SÁN OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEW̱ HÁLE? | ‘Who do you folks lift?’ |
| 8) | STÁṈ OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NEW̱ HÁLE? | ‘What do you folks lift?’ |
| 9) | SÁN OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NES? | ‘Who does/do he/she/it/they lift?’ |
| 10) | STÁṈ OĆE TŦE SÁ¸NES? | ‘What does/do he/she/it/they lift?’ |
‣ 1 All of the subordinate subject pronouns are suffixes on the verb.
‣ 2 In questions, these subordinate subject suffixes are used only on transitive verbs. Review the definition of ‘transitive verb’ at the beginning of §1. A transitive verb has two participants: one doing the action, the other undergoing the action. When we ask ‘Who did you lift?’ the two participants are ‘you’ and the person being lifted. When there is only one participant in a question, as in ‘Who went?,’ we do not need the special subject suffix.
‣ 3 Notice that the subordinate subject suffixes are similar to the main subject pronouns:
| main subject | subordinate subject suffix | |
| ‘I’ | SEN | -EN |
| ‘we’ | ȽTE | -EȽTE |
| ‘you’ | SW̱ | -EW̱ |
| ‘he/she/it’ | -ES | -ES |
‣ 5 The ‑EW̱ at the end of the noncontrol transitive is dropped when the subordinate subject suffix is added. Compare these:
QENNEW̱ SEN. ‘I see him/her/it.’
SÁN OĆE TŦE QENNEN? ‘Who do I see?’
When the subordinate subject is ‑EW̱ ‘you,’ the end of a noncontrol transitive verb like QENNEW̱ drops off. But when you add the ‘you’ suffix, it ends up looking exactly the same. So some sentences can have two meanings:
QENNEW̱ SW̱. ‘You see him/her/it.’
SÁN OĆE TŦE QENNEW̱? ‘Who do you see? or ‘Who sees him/her/it?’
Here SÁN OĆE TŦE QENNEW̱? has two meanings because the ‑EW̱ at the end could be the end of the transitive verb or the ‘you’ suffix. The context of the conversation will usually make the intended meaning clear.
‣ 6 These subordinate subject markers have several uses. We will be seeing them again in several sections to come.
 | STÁṈ OĆ ȻS ȻENNEW̱ HÁLE? | ‘What did you folks get?’ |
 | NIȽ TŦE ṈOS PELUPS. | ‘It’s four kittens.’ |
| CÁN SE¸ OĆ TŦE EȽENISTW̱? | ‘Who will feed them?’ |
| ȽNIṈEȽ SE¸ I¸ TŦE TÁN ȽTE. | ‘We will, and our mother.’ |
| 17A. Translate into English (Hint: in each of these the question word refers to the object.) 1. STÁṈ LE¸ OĆE TŦE W̱EĆETEN? 2. STÁṈ LE¸ OĆE TŦE ȻENNEȽTE? 3. SÁN SE¸ OĆE TŦE QENNEW̱? 4. SÁN OĆE TŦE XĆITES? | 17B. Translate into English (Hint: in some of these the question word refers to the object and in some it refers to the subject.) 1. STÁṈ LE¸ OĆE TŦE QENNEN? 2. SÁN OĆE TŦE XĆIT? 3. SÁN LE¸ OĆE TŦE W̱EĆETEW̱ HÁLE? 4. SÁN OĆE TŦE ȻENET? |
17C. Do this exercise after completing §32. Translate each of the following into SENĆOŦEN.
| 1. What hit you? | 6. What did you hit? |
| 2. Who will choose you? | 7. Who will you choose? |
| 3. What lifted us? | 8. What did we lift? |
| 4. What broke it? | 9. What did it break? |
| 5. Who will hold me? | 10. Who will I hold? |
17D. Do this exercise after completing §32. Notice that the sentences in exercise 17C appear as pairs, side by side. The ones on the left (1 through 5) ask about the subject, while the ones on the right (6 through 10) ask about the object. Make three new pairs of sentences like these.