SENĆOŦEN: A Grammar of the Saanich Language

62 Rare Prefixes and Suffixes

This chapter winds up the description of the basic elements of SENĆOŦEN grammar. Here we cover three prefixes and five suffixes that occur only rarely. These are rare in one or more of three ways: (1) they occur on a very few, frequently used words; (2) they occur on a few words that are infrequently used; or (3) they occur on words that are known to only one or two speakers. For all of these rare prefixes and suffixes attempts have been made to elicit more examples from L1 speakers without success.

Features of a language can be rare for several reasons. It may be that over the years it was found to be less useful and was abandoned for a new way of saying the same thing. Another possibility is that some sound change in the distant past of the language caused a prefix or suffix to be lost or obscured.

Borrowing is major source of rare elements. Words have been incorporated into SENĆOŦEN from other languages. There are some from English, such MÍ ‘My!’ (§60). Some come from Chinook Jargon, such as LEŚOS ‘angel,’ which Chinook Jargon got from French ‘les anges.’ And there are some from nearby First Nations languages, such as SPOOL¸ ‘story name of Raven,’ which came into SENĆOŦEN from Hul’q’umin’um̕. There has always been much intermarriage among First Nations, and spouses from other groups bring some of their words with them and add them to the language of their new family. It is likely that at least some of the items discussed in this section are rare because they came with words that a great-great-grandparent brought with them when they married into a W̱SÁNEĆ family.
 
Models
1)ȽSEK‘half’
2)ȽKEM¸‘section’
3)NEȻIM‘red, orange, brown’
4)NEKIX‘black’
5)NEPEW̱‘brown, gold, blond’
6)NEḰȺ‘green, yellow’
7)NEW̱IQ‘gray’
8)XELXȺṈ‘go to war’
9)MEQEL¸ĆIS SW̱.‘Wait for me.’
10)TÍYET‘upstream area’
11)SÁUT‘in a lying down position’
12)TȺIȽ‘go to a canoe race’
13)ĆELUIȽEṈ‘go on the other side’
14)ĆEMSNITEṈ‘be met by someone’
15)ȻEŦNIT‘send to someone’

‣ 1 Models 1 and 2 have a prefix Ƚ‑ that seems to indicate a ‘part’ of something. There are only five or six words in SENĆOŦEN that have this prefix. The two shown here most clearly illustrate the ‘part’ meaning.
‣ 2 Models 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are color terms. These five words and words derived from them are the only words in SENĆOŦEN that have this NE- ‘color’ prefix.
‣ 3 Of the basic color terms in SENĆOŦEN, only PEK ‘white’ does not have this NE- prefix. Some color terms derived from these five also do not have the NE- prefix. One example is ȻEȻEMOLES ‘brown.’ This is derived from model 5, NEȻIM. It has the ‘diminutive’ reduplication (§59.1), and it has the -OLES ‘color, eye, round’ suffix, which takes the stress from the root. The NE- prefix is absent on ȻEȻEMOLES. Note that this has been spelled CUCEMOLES by some younger SENĆOŦEN learners, and they pronounce it that way based on the spelling. All L1 elders who know the word, however, pronounce it as ȻEȻEMOLES.
‣ 4 Model 11 shows the only clear case of the ‑ȺṈ suffix. It clearly means ‘go to’ in this word. The rest of the word, XELX is from XILEX ‘war.’ The E is deleted (point 8 of Notes on Pronunciation) and the I is reduced to E (point 7 of Notes on Pronunciation) by regular sound processes. This is not a borrowed word. It is unclear why this suffix, which seems to be useful, would be rare.
‣ 5 Model 12 shows a suffix that clearly is borrowed. This suffix has been recorded in SENĆOŦEN only in this word, but it is a common suffix in Hul’q’umin’um̕. In SENĆOŦEN, we would expect the ‑SIT ‘benefactive’ transitivizer. Everything else about this sentence is SENĆOŦEN.
‣ 6 Models 13 and 14 show a ‑ET or -T suffix that is apparently all that remains in SENĆOŦEN of a suffix that is common in some other Salishan languages. This suffix marks a state of being. SENĆOŦEN generally uses the S­‑ stative prefix (§43) for this purpose. The root in model 13 is related to the word TÍYEL ‘go upstream.’ The root in model 15 is related to SÁȻES ‘lay it down.’
‣ 7 A suffix ‑IȽ that means ‘go to’ or ‘go for’ is shown in models 15 and 16. This has been recorded on only a small number of words. This may be related to the -OȽ ‘conveyance’ lexical suffix.
‣ 8 The suffix ‑NI (or possibly ‑NIT), shown in models 17 and 18, is similar to the nonpatient object transitivizing suffixes described in §36. However, those suffixes, ‑SIT, ‑OST, and ‑ṈIT occur on more than one stem and L1 speakers readily recognize them. The suffix here also marks a nonpatient object. Here it seems that the object is a destination. The problem is that the two stems shown in models 17 and 18 are the only stems recorded with this suffix.
‣ 9 Model 17 is based on W̱ĆEMES ‘meet.’ Adding the ‑NI, -T transitive, and the ‑EṈ passive gives us the form shown in the model. The W̱- prefix is absent. For model 18, we have only a partial list of object suffixes: ȻEŦNIS ‘send to me’ and ȻEŦNISE ‘send to you.’
 
NEȻIM E TŦE ȾIȾEȾEM¸.‘Is the bird red?’
EWENE NE SXĆIT.‘I don’t know.
   SQȺ Ȼ NE SȾÁU¸QENNEW̱.       I can’t see it yet.’
 
61A. Make up an original sentence using each of the three rare prefixes discussed in this section.

61B. Make up an original sentence using each of the five rare suffixes discussed in this section.		 


 

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