…kw’es kw’étslexwes te sth’óqwi li te tl’ép te qó:.

…kw’es kw’étslexwes te sth’óqwi li te tl’ép te qó: is a partial phrase, meaning ‘..to see the fish below the water’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Vocabulary and Structure

This partial phrase has the following structure:

Vocabulary:

• kw’es – generally means ‘that‘, here it translates as ‘to‘
• kw’étslexw -‘to see‘
• -es – must be added to the verb (kw’étslexw), 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 just understood (but not expressed) to be ‘they‘ (i.e. the ones who will see the fish). Even when not explicitly stated, third person subject still trigger the –es ending on this type of verb.
• te – ‘the’.
• sth’óqwi – ‘fish’
• li – in (this can also mean ‘at, on, to’, it is a general purpose preposition. Li also has other uses in the language, including as a yes/no question marker, but here it is used as a preposition.
• te – the
• tl’ép – deep, low, here used for below
• qó: – water
  

  water