Questioning the degree of an Adverb vs. an Adjective, versus exclaiming about them
In the Northern Dialect (see afterward for a Southern Dialect comment),
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Kantzih–haiyoo = “how.much – much” / “how.many – many”.
Kind of redundant, eh? But it’s normal in all dialects of Chinook Jargon. And this is how you make “how ___” (to what degree?) questions with all (quantity-type) ADVERBS, including kantzih-leili “how long (a time)?”
(By the way, we write this not-exactly-literal meaning with a dash.)
But…you’re about to see something special about the Northern Dialect, where the other “how ___” (“to what degree?”) questions about ADJECTIVES are made with kata- “how”! In the North:
Kata–haiyas = “how – big”, literally.
Contrast the way this ADJECTIVE question is formed, with the way Kantzih-haiyoo “how much / how many” and other “to what extent”+ADVERB questions are built!
(This, too, is not quite a literal “how?” + “big”, i.e. it’s not “big in what way?”, so we also write this with a dash.)
Therefore!
–and check whether you see why this is true–, when you find kata plus an ADVERB, it’s usually going to instead mean the exclamatory “Oh, what a long time” (Kata leili!), and so on! We also exclaim about ADJECTIVES with kata, for instance kata mesaachi! = “how mean!”
(We write this more (?) literal meaning without a dash.)
The Southern Dialect BONUS FACT:
In Oregon it’s qʰə́nchi all the way down, for both adverbs and adjectives: qʰə́nchi-háyú ‘how much?/how many?’, qʰə́nchi-líli ‘(for) how long?’, qʰə́nchi-háyásh ‘how big?’
And that exclamatory function is also served by this qʰə́nchi, so in the 2012 Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary you’ll find an example of qʰə́nchi ánqati ‘so very long ago!’
