NCW kanawi-qa-ilihi vs qa-sun

A reason for the puzzlingly clunky Northern-Dialect expression for ‘everywhere’,

kanawi-qa-ilihi?

That’s 3 morphemes, literally saying ‘every-where-place’.

Image credit: Theatre Plays

Unlike the Southern Dialect of Chinook Jargon, it’s kind of rare for someone to say just *kanawi-qa. (Which is literally ‘every-where’.)

Why?

I point to the existence of a very similar and frequent expression in the Northern Dialect:

qa-sun ‘when’…

…which is literally ‘where-day’.

In the Northern Dialect, we don’t know the old / Southern Dialect word for ‘when’ (qʰə́nchi).

My thinking is simple:

I reckon folks speaking Northern Dialect have historically been used to using qa ‘where’ to make complex “content questions”.

(Some linguists will call those “WH-questions”. Your mileage may vary.)

Bonus fact: 

Another element in this picture — folks often use ‘everywhere’ as an adjective in the Northern Dialect, especially to speak of ‘people from all over the place’.

And it makes good sense, in that context, to say as they do: kanawi-qa-ilihi tilixum. (‘Every-where-place people’.)

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
What have you learned?