-KÉÉZ

Navajo

Etymology

From Proto-Athabaskan *qʊs-x (“to cough”).

Cognate root found in Ahtna delkos (“he is coughing”), Carrier dəlkwəs (“he coughs”).

Occurs in Southern Athabaskan along with tsí-thematic in bases related to thinking. This meaning is probably rather related to the non-nasalized form of -KĘ́Ę́Z (in which the nazalization is non-etymological).

Root

-KÉÉZ

  1. to cough

Theme	Category	Bases	Transitive bases (O + ł)
di + l	successive	S coughs hadilkees (MOM) dilkos (REP) diilkos (SEM)

  2. to think, to ponder, to decide

Theme	Category	Bases	Transitive bases (O + ł)
tsí + Ø		S thinks atsékees (Ø-MOM) tsídíkees ńtsídiikees (ńdii-, “start to”) ntsékees (ni-MOM) ntsékees (CONT) ↳ ntsáhákees

Stem set

Aspect	IMP	PERF	FUT	ITER	OPT
MOM / CONT	-kees	-kééz	-kos	-kos	-kees
REP	-kos	-	-	-	-
SEM	-kos	-kos	-kos	-kos	-kos

See also Appendix: Roots and stems derivation.

Synonyms

to think:

• -ZĮĮD

Derived terms

Navajo terms belonging to the root -KÉÉZ (cough)

Navajo terms belonging to the root -KÉÉZ (think)