stl’ís kw’es sq’eq’ósthóxes

Stl’ís kw’es sq’eq’ósthóxes means ‘(She) wanted to accompany me’. Less literally, you could also translate it as ‘She wanted to take me on a trip’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

• stl’í – a want, a need (see stl’í kw’es… – stl’í is actually a noun, and the past tense interpretation is is understood from context)
• -s – here, the –s marks that the want belongs to some third person (someone other than you or me). This is the understood ‘he‘ or ‘she‘.
• kw’es – to, that
• sq’eq’óstexw – to accompany (him/her) (See sq’eq’ósthóx – the –exw part drops before the –óx ending, and the t becomes a th)
• -óx – me
• -es – here the –es marks the presence of a third person subject, in this case the understood ‘she‘

Note: this phrase is selected from a longer sentence, covered in the next post