Sthémelts qesu le xwá qwóqwiyel te syétl’q’tes te kyós

Tuesday he paints his car green.

Sthémelts qesu le xwá qwóqwiyel te syétl’q’tes te kyós means ‘Tuesday he paints his car green’.

Literally it means ‘Tuesday and.so comes.to be.turning.green the paint.job of the car (of him)‘.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• Sthémelts –Tuesday
  

  Tuesday

• qesu –and so
• le – an untranslatable ‘auxiliary’ (‘helper’) verb, a reduced form of lam – to go
• xwá – to become
• qwóqwiyel – turning green, turning yellow (This is the ‘-ing‘ form of qwáyel – ‘turn green/yellow’).
  

  turn green, turn yellow

• te – the
• syétl’q’t – paint job
  

  paint job

• kyó – car
  

  car

• -s, -es – here ‘of’

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Note that the possessor ‘him‘ or ‘his‘ (in ‘the car of his/him’) is just understood from context. The possessor-ending –s on kyo however indicates that the car is ‘possessed’ by a third person in the context.