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 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

6 Adjectives

43373
Adjectives are quality words that describe what something is like. Some examples are ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘new,’ ‘happy.’

In English, adjectives are used in two ways: (1) to modify a noun, as in ‘good dog,’ and (2) in a sentence with ‘is’ describing the subject, as in ‘the dog is good.’

In SENĆOŦEN also, an adjective can be used in two ways: (1) to modify a noun, as in TŦE ÍY¸ SḴAXE¸ ‘the good dog,’ and (2) as an intransitive verb describing the subject, as in ÍY¸ TŦE SḴAXE¸ ‘the dog is good.’
Here is a list of useful quality words. The stressed vowels are in red in this list:
 ÍY¸‘good’XEU¸ES‘new’
 SXÁ¸ES‘bad’S¸ÁLEW̱‘old’
 ĆEḴ‘big’O¸ĆEṈ‘slow’
 MEMIM¸EN¸‘small’X̱EṈ‘fast’
 ṈEN¸‘many’ or much’PEK‘white’
 QOMQEM‘strong’NEKIX‘black’
 
‣ 1 SENĆOŦEN adjectives usually come before the noun they modify, as in English. Occasionally you will find an adjective following the noun as in TŦE SḴAXE¸ ÍY¸. This is best thought of as a relative clause construction, ‘the dog that is good’. This advanced topic will be covered in §47.
‣ 2 In the SENĆOŦEN of the most fluent speakers recorded, the possessive never precedes the adjective in a noun phrase. To say ‘my good dog,’ the original way was TŦE IY¸ NE SḴAXE¸, with NE preceding the noun. But younger speakers and new speakers, influenced by the English pattern, might say TŦE NE IY¸ SḴAXE¸ with the NE preceding the adjective as in English. What this shows is that, under the influence of English, NE is becoming a separate word like English ‘my’ rather than a prefix. There is one very common phrase often used at the beginning of a speech that shows the original pattern: SI¸ÁM¸ NE SĆÁLE¸ĆE¸! ‘my respected friends!’ You never hear NE SI¸ÁM¸ SĆÁLE¸ĆE¸! In this book, we will consistently follow the original pattern of the most fluent native speakers.
‣ 3 This section introduces twelve adjectives that you should memorize. There are many more adjectives in SENĆOŦEN. You can find them in the SENĆOŦEN Dictionary.
‣ 4 New vocabulary (with the stressed vowel in red):
          SI¸ÁM¸               ‘respected’
          SĆÁLE¸ĆE¸         ‘friends’
 
QOMQEM TŦE NE TÁN.‘My mother is strong.’
ṮÁ¸ U¸ QOMQEM TŦE NE SȻÁ¸.‘Mine is strong, too.’
S¸ÁLEW̱ ȻŦE NE SILE¸.‘My grandmother is old.’
ṮÁ¸ U¸ S¸ÁLEW̱ ȻŦE NE SȻÁ¸.‘Mine is old, too.’
 
6A. Translate each of the following into English.
1. SXÁ¸ES TŦE SḴAXE¸.
2. ĆEḴ E LE¸ TŦE SNEW̱EȽ?
3. QOMQEM TŦE NE SĆÁ¸ĆE¸.
4. S¸ÁLEW̱ TŦE NE SḴAXE¸.
5. X̱EṈ E LE¸ TŦE ḰO¸?
6. YÁ¸ E LE¸ TŦE MEMIM¸EN¸EN¸ SĆÁ¸ĆE¸?
7. ȽÁU¸ TŦE ÍY¸ SWIU¸LES.
8. SÁ¸ET ĆE TŦE ĆEḴ SNEW̱EȽ.
9. ȻÁ¸ET LE¸ SEN TŦE NEKIX Á¸LEṈ.
10. ŚJET E SW̱ TŦE ÍY¸ SḴAXE¸?		6B. Translate each of the following into SENĆOŦEN.
1. The dog is bad.
2. My house is new.
3. His mother is strong.
4. Your father is good.
5. Was the deer fast?
6. Is your house white?
7. Do you know my good friend?
8. You folks’ uncle went.
9. We lifted my old canoe.
10. He took the small dog.
6C. Find three more SENĆOŦEN adjectives and make sentences using them.

This page has paths:

  1. PART 3 SENĆOŦEN Grammatical Patterns Montler, et al.

This page has tags:

  1. 10.1. U¸-class auxiliaries Montler, et al.

Contents of this tag:

  1. 47 Relative Clauses