vocabulary for this lesson
c'én can be interpreted to mean “s/he saw it." or "s/he sees it.”
c'éde makes it a question, “Did s/he see it?” What is the part in c'éde that makes it a question?
How about this one?
If c'éjem means “You (plural) saw it.” and
c'édejem means “Did you (plural) see it?”, what is the part of the Konkow word that makes it a question?
As you probably said, there is a suffix -de that makes the two examples above into questions. (The -m ending makes it past tense.) We’ll call the question suffix Q for short. Here’s the full analysis of that word:Here's a third one:
If c'éja:n means “They (two) saw it." and
c'édaja: means “Did they (two) see it?”, what parts makes that one a question?
You probably saw that instead of -de, the question suffix is now -da. The question suffix changes the vowel to whatever the following vowel is. If it comes at the end of the word, though, it will always be -de.Rule: The question suffix is -da if the next vowel is a, and -de if the next vowel is e. This change to match the next vowel is called vowel harmony. If the question suffix is at the end of the word, it is always -da.
Example:
hubo:di bísni? Did you stay at home?
- -de on the verb replaces the verb-final -in/n .
- -de occurs before the number suffixes (-ja: dual and -je plural) and person markers on the verb (-s, first person, etc.) Otherwise, it goes on the end of the word.
- If there is an auxiliary, it goes on that word instead of the main verb.
- You would normally leave the -de out in 2nd person forms because the 2nd person suffix has a special form -ni used only for questions.
Statement Question bájan. He cracked acorns bájade ? Did he crack acorns? sólja:m. You (two) sang. solja:ni ? Did you (two) sing? __jen. They went. __jede ? Did they go? m_k'i s_• wó•non. His dog died. m_k'i s_• wó•node ? Did his dog die? nisa:m mako peja:n. We (dual) ate the fish. nisa:m mako pedaja:s ? Did we eat the fish?
If there is an auxiliary verb (like ha “be,do”) in the sentence, the question suffix will occur on that word instead.
test
Review in the box above how pronouns with the auxiliary verb ha attached to them can be parsed.
Who, what, when, where, how questions
Most of these question words usually have auxiliary verbs with them. Examples from the texts: hétynade mómim? How is the water? "hétyn-(h)a-de móm-im?" how-be-question water-subject? ʔac'è, hómohàdehan ʔýk'o:n, ʔàmammájdym! Now, where did he go, that man? ʔac'è, hómo-hà-de-ha-n ʔýk'o:-n, ʔàma-m-májdy-m now, where-do-Q-do-verb.final go-verb.final, that-descriptive-man-subject There are very few simple examples of question words in Ultan's writings. But in the interest of learning how to ask questions, here are a few useful questions from the writings that you might want to ask: