éyaqtes te syétl’q’tes te lá:léms

He changes his house’s paint.

Eyaqtes te syétl’q’tes te lá:léms means ‘he changes his house’s paint’, or ‘he re-paints his house’.

Literally it means ‘Changing (he) the paint-job of his house’.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• éyaqt – changing (this is a variant of iyáqt – change (it))
• -es – here the –es ending marks agreement with a ‘third person’ (i.e. not me or you) as the subject. In this sentence, that ‘third person’ subject is the understood ‘he‘.
• te – the
• syétl’q’t – paint job
• -s – of
• lá:lém – house
• -s – here the –s means ‘of‘, indicating that the house is possessed by understood ‘he‘.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Related words

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

The subject of the verb éyaqt is an understood ‘he‘. Verbs like éyaqt require an –es ending to show ‘agreement’ (labelled AGR) when the subject is a ‘third person’ (someone other than you or me).