el stl’í kw’es híkws kw’el lá:lém

I want my house to be big.

El stl’í kw’es hikws kw’el lálém means ‘I want my house to be big’.

Literally: ‘My want (is) that big (is) my house’.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• el – my
• stl’i – want, what I want
• kw’es – that
• El stl’í kw’es… – I want that… My want is that…
• híkw – big
• -s – you add this ending in an embedded sentence (after ‘that‘…), when a ‘third person’ (in this case, ‘my house’) is the subject
• kw’el – my (this is a variant of tel . You use kw’el for remote, distant, or possible situations.
• lá:lém – house

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Note: this audio is selected from a longer sentence

Structure notes

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Here is an explanation of why the –s is needed, on híkw:

• In this structure, [híkws kw’el lá:lém] – my house is big is an ’embedded sentence (i.e. a complete sentences within a larger sentence).
• The subject of this embedded sentences is [kw’el lá:lém] – my house.
• This is a ‘third person subject’, meaning that it is not you or me.
• When an embedded sentence has a third person subject, you have to add an extra –s ending.  This is what is labelled –3SUBJ above.