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

38.2. ‘Why’ with Ȼ Clause

43373 39 Because
Models
1)X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ NE SYÁ¸?‘Why did I go?’
2)X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ EN¸ SYÁ¸?‘Why did you go?’
3)X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ EN¸ SYÁ¸ HÁLE? ‘Why did you folks go?’
4)X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ SYÁ¸ȽTE?‘Why did we go?’
5)X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ SW̱YÁ¸S?‘Why did he/she/it/they go?’
6) X̱ENIṈ OĆE Ȼ SYÁ¸S?‘Why did he/she/it/they go?’

‣ 1 This pattern is very similar to the pattern shown in §38.1. Compare them now and look for the differences.
‣ 2 The big difference is that the models here contain Ȼ clauses. This type of subordinate clause was introduced in §12.6 and is a major part of many constructions in SENĆOŦEN. See §46 for a summary of Ȼ clauses.
‣ 3 There is apparently no difference in use and general meaning between the ‘why’ question in this section and those in §38.1. But we can do a somewhat more literal translation of each to show the difference. Model 2 in §38.1, X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ EN¸ ŚW̱YÁ¸? can be literally, though awkwardly translated ‘How is your reason for going?’ Model 2 in this section X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ EN¸ ŚW̱YÁ¸? can be literally, though awkwardly translated ‘How is it that you go?’ Both mean ‘Why did you go?’
‣ 4 Model 6 shows that, just as for the ‘why’ questions shown in §38.1 either ȻECÁ or OĆE can be used, but without either of those particles¸ it is not a question.
‣ 5 The pattern for this form of ‘why’ questions is:
               X̱ENIṈ   ȻEĆÁ/OĆE  Ȼ  possessive   S-event
The event could be any sentence, but the subject of the event must be marked with one of the possessive prefixes or suffixes. The ȻEĆÁ/OĆE here means either ȻEĆÁ or OĆE can be used.
‣ 6 As usual, for all the models in this book, if tense is not specified in SENĆOŦEN, context provides it. In these models and those in §38.1, the English translation is in the past tense, but these all could be translated with present or future tense if the context calls for it. Past or future tense (§2) can be explicitly added either after the X̱ENIṈ or after the event.
 
X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ EN¸ STI₭ES?‘Why did you bump me?’
SXA¸ES SW̱.‘You’re bad.’
EWE TÁ SEN S SXÁ¸ES.‘But I’m not bad.’
NIȽ ȻEĆÁ SU¸ ESES SXÁ¸ES.‘Then it’s me that’s bad.’
 
38.2A. Translate into English:
1. X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ S¸ÁȽE ȽTE?
2. X̱ENIṈ OĆE Ȼ EN¸ SṈO¸ET TŦE S¸IȽEN?
3. X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ SȻENÁṈETS?
4. X̱ENIṈ ȻEĆÁ Ȼ S¸EWES Ȼ EN¸ SYÁ¸?		38.2B. Translate into SENĆOŦEN using the Ȼ clause construction:
1. Why did he come to Tseycum?
2. Why don’t you eat?
3. Why did we run away?
4. Why did you hit me?

This page has paths:

  1. 38 Questions: ‘Why?’ Montler, et al.

This page has tags:

  1. 46 Ȼ Clauses Montler, et al.
  2. 55 Nominalizing Prefixes Montler, et al.

Contents of this tag:

  1. 12.6. ‘Not let’ and a subordinate clause
  2. 2 Past and Future Tense