Tl’o hókwexes…

Tl’o hó:kwexes is a partial phrase, meaning ‘It’s what (they) used…’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Vocabulary and Structure

This partial phrase has the following structure:

Note that there is no explicit word for ‘they‘, this is just understood from context. ‘It‘ refers to the pitch wood.

Vocabulary:

• tl’o – it is (what) (this is a ‘focus’ marker, used for a certain kind of emphasis, and does not translate directly into English)
• hó:kwex – ‘to use‘
• -es – must be added to the verb, because this type of verb requires an –es ending whenever its subject is ‘third person’ (neither me nor you). In this case, the third person subject is the understood ‘they‘ (i.e. the ones who use it).