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

20.6. Correlative comparative

43373 21 Questions: ‘When?’
Models
1)NIȽ SU¸ IȽENS I¸ NIȽ SU¸ ĆEḴSOTS.‘The more they eat, the bigger they get.’
2)NIȽ SU¸ IȽENS, SU¸ X̱EṈS Ȼ SĆEḴSOTS.‘The more they eat, the bigger they get.’
3)NIȽ NE SU¸ ÁLEW̱SET, ‘The older I get,
       SU¸ X̱EṈS Ȼ NE SMEL¸EḴ.      the more I forget.’

‣ 1 The correlative comparative construction is used to express a correlation between two qualities. In SENĆOŦEN, there are two patterns. The first pattern is shown in model 1. 
‣ 2 The pattern shown in model 1 is two NIȽ SU¸ clauses conjoined with the I¸ conjunction. NIȽ SU¸ clauses important in SENĆOŦEN and are covered in detail in §51.2. Here we just consider them as foundation for the correlative comparative construction.
‣ 3 Here is the pattern for the correlative comparative shown in model 1:
          NIȽ SU¸ QUALITY1   I¸  NIȽ SU¸ QUALITY2  
Importantly, the subjects in both halves of this construction are marked by a possessive prefix or suffix. The following are good sentences in this first pattern:
    NIȽ NE SU¸ IȽEN I¸ NIȽ NE SU¸ ĆEḴSOT.        ‘The more I eat, the bigger I get.’
    NIȽ EN¸ SU¸ IȽEN I¸ NIȽ EN¸ SU¸ ĆEḴSOT.      ‘The more you eat, the bigger you get.’
    NIȽ SU¸ IȽEN ȽTE I¸ NIȽ SU¸ ĆEḴSOT ȽTE.      ‘The more we eat, the bigger we get.’
‣ 4 The second pattern appears in models 2 and 3. In this pattern, the second quality being correlated is in a Ȼ clause (§46) following the word X̱EṈ, which usually means ‘fast, quick.’
‣ 5 Here is the pattern for the correlative comparative shown in models 2 and 3:
          NIȽ SU¸ QUALITY1   I¸  SU¸ X̱EṈ Ȼ SQUALITY2  
Importantly, as with the first pattern, the subjects in both halves of this construction are marked by a possessive prefix or suffix.
‣ 6 This second pattern is a good example of an idiomatic expression, where the meaning is not directly obvious from the component words. Here X̱EṈ ‘fast’ is not used in its usual sense, but is just part of this construction that makes the correlative comparative.
 
NIȽ EN¸ SU¸ LELÁ¸NEṈ I¸ ‘The more you listen,
      NIȽ EN¸ SU¸ TOL¸NEW̱.      the more you understand.’
LELÁ¸NEṈ SEN.‘I’m listening.’
EWE TÁ Ȼ EN¸ SLELÁ¸NEṈ.‘You’re never listening.’
INET SW̱ ȻEĆÁ?‘What did you say?’
 
20.6A. Translate each of the following into SENĆOŦEN
1. The more you run, the stronger you are.
2. The more they talk, the more tired I get.
3. The more he sings, the better he is.
4. The slower you are, the easier it is.		 
20.6B. Make four more SENĆOŦEN correlative comparative sentences.

This page has paths:

  1. 20 Comparison Montler, et al.

Contents of this tag:

  1. 46 Ȼ Clauses
  2. 51.2. Using SU¸- and NIȽ SU¸-