SENĆOŦEN: A Grammar of the Saanich Language

48.5. Combining speech act modifiers

Models
1)YÁ¸ E YEW̱ ȽTE SE¸?‘I guess we’re going to go?’
2)IȽEN E LE¸ SW̱ ȻEĆÁ HÁLE?‘So then, did you folks eat?’
3)SÁN YEW̱ LE¸ OĆE ȻE¸?‘Who must it have been?’
4)ȻEN¸IT SEN SE¸ OL¸ ȻE¸.‘I will just be holding it.’

‣ 1 As the models show, speech act modifiers can be used in combination.
‣ 2 In the models, you can see the meaning of each of the particles in the English translations. 
‣ 3 The models—with four or five in a row—shows the longest recorded strings of speech act modifiers. It may be possible to have more, but no longer sequence has been found acceptable by L1 speakers. Two to four in a row is common.
‣ 4 The speech act modifiers, as a group, always follow the first word of the clause—main clause or subordinate clause. Within that group of particles, there are restrictions on which speech act modifiers can be used together in a sentence. There are also restrictions on the order of speech act particles when they combine.
‣ 5 The speech act modifiers can be divided into eight groups based on position and combination restrictions. Each of these eight groups forms a position slot within the set of speech act modifiers. The table at the end of this section shows the eight groups in the order in which they follow the first word of the clause. Each column represents a fixed position slot. For example, in a yes/no question the E has to come first after the verb. If you have a plural ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the clause, the HÁLE has to come at the end before any noun phrase or subordinate clause.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Eyes/noKhypoth.LE¸pastSENIKEsurpriseȻE¸newȻEĆÁthereforeHÁLE2pl.
ĆEcommandYEW̱guessSE¸futureSW̱youÁȻEurgeȻSI¸sharedTÁcontrary
ĆEȽsuggestYEḴhope  ȽTEweȻE¸EexpectOĆErequestWO¸wonder
JEhearsayWE¸OĆEpresume    ȻE¸Í¸ErealizeOL¸limitȻI¸Eunexpected
YEḴLE¸oughtJEȽtypical    I¸Eusual¸Ocertain
  ĆTEprobably
‣ 6 This table shows that, for example, LE¸ and SE¸ occupy the same position slot among the speech act modifiers. This means that you cannot use both in a single clause. In general, you cannot use more than one particle from each slot.
‣ 7 There are three exceptions to the ordering shown in the table. Two of the exceptions involve YEW̱ ‘guess.’ Usually with OĆE ‘request,’ YEW̱ comes first as in the very common phrase STÁṈ YEW̱ OĆE? ‘What must that be?’ However, several times in the narratives recorded from the oldest L1 speakers, they use the opposite order: STÁṈ OĆE YEW̱? with apparently the same meaning.
‣ 8 The other exception involving YEW̱ involves ĆTE ‘probably,’ which occupies the same slot as YEW̱. Again, in the hundreds of recorded narratives of the oldest L1 speakers of SENĆOŦEN we have YEW̱ ĆTE in a single clause together two times. And we have the reverse, ĆTE YEW̱ one time.
‣ 9 The third exception was covered in §2.2. The SE¸ ‘future’ marker comes after the first-person markers SEN and ȽTE.
‣ 10 There are some combinations that do not occur simply because they would not make sense. For example, ĆE ‘command’ with LE¸ past tense would make no sense—you cannot command someone to do something in the past. There are a few other restrictions on how speech act modifiers combine that seem somewhat arbitrary. Here is a list of those restrictions:
1. O ‘certain’ cannot be used with LE¸ ‘past tense.’
2. ĆTE ‘probably’ cannot be used with SE¸ ‘future.’

3. ĆTE ‘probably’ cannot be used with first or second person subjects.

4. YEḴ ‘hope’ cannot be used with SE¸ ‘future.’

5. E ‘yes/no question’ cannot occur with both YEW̱ ‘guess’ and SW̱ ‘you.’ Combinations of any two of these three are good, but not all three together.
6. Only one occurrence of HÁLE is acceptable in a sentence, even if there are two plural ‘you’ references. For example, X̱EṈ SW̱ HÁLE I¸ YÁ¸ ȻE IȽENEW̱ ‘You folks can go if you eat’ has two ‘you’ references (highlighted here). The HÁLE can follow the first one or the second one, but not both. So X̱EṈ SW̱ I¸ YÁ¸ ȻE IȽENEW̱ HÁLE is also acceptable and means the same thing. But *X̱EṈ SW̱ HÁLE I¸ YÁ¸ ȻE IȽENEW̱ HÁLE with HÁLE twice sounds bad to L1 speakers.
‣ 11 The entries for the speech act modifiers in the SENĆOŦEN dictionary mention some restrictions insisted on by L1 speakers, but examples of sentences violating those restrictions have been found in the recorded narratives of the oldest L1 speakers.
‣ 12 There are thousands of possible combinations of these speech act modifiers. Fewer than two hundred different combinations have been documented. There may well be other restrictions on their occurrence together.
‣ 13 The EȽ ‘type’ particle is missing from the table. As explained in points 6, 7, and 8 of §48.4 this particle is unlike the other speech act modifiers in several ways. It is unknown what position, if any, it should take in the table.
 
NIȽ YEW̱ LE¸ KE ȻSE ĆEḴ SPÁ¸EŦ! ‘I guess it was a big bear!’
SÁ¸SI¸ E SW̱ ȻEĆÁ HÁLE? ‘So were you folks scared?’
EWE LE¸ ȽTE TÁ Ȼ SSÁ¸SIȽTE. ‘We were never scared.’
ḴEL¸ḴEL¸OŦEN LE¸ YEḴ SW̱. ‘I hope you were dreaming.’
 
48.5A. Translate into English.
1. YÁ¸ E ĆTE SW̱ HÁLE ṮE METULIYE?
2. ȻENET LE¸ ȽTE OL¸ TŦE SNEW̱EȽ.
3. YÁ¸ ĆEȽ SW̱ KE!
4. IȽEN JE LE¸ ȻEĆÁ ŦE KÁ¸ṈI¸. 		48.5B. Translate into SENĆOŦEN
1. I thought you were going to leave.
2. You really ran!
3. You folks apparently ate.
4. All of you go home!

48.5C. Explain the use of each speech act modifier in each of the four model sentences.

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