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Ojibwe grammar

Encyclopedia : O : OJ : OJI : Ojibwe grammar

The Ojibwe language is an Algonquian American Indian language spoken throughout the Great Lakes region and westward onto the northern plains. It is one of the largest American Indian languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and exhibits a large number of divergent dialects. For the most part, this article describes the Minnesota variety of the Southwestern dialect. The orthography used is the Fiero Double-Vowel System.

Like many American languages, Ojibwe is polysynthetic, meaning it exhibits a great deal of synthesis and a very high morpheme-to-word ratio (e.g., the single word for "they are Chinese" is aniibiishaabookewininiiwiwag, which contains seven morphemes: elm-PEJORATIVE-liquid-make-man-be-PLURAL, or approximately "they are leaf-soup [i.e., tea] makers"). It is agglutinating, and thus builds up words by stringing morpheme after morpheme together, rather than having several affixes which carry numerous different pieces of information.

Like most Algonquian languages, Ojibwe distinguishes two different kinds of third person, a proximate and an obviative. The proximate is a traditional third person, while the obviative (also frequently called "fourth person") marks a less important third person if more than one third person is taking part in an action. In other words, Ojibwe uses the obviative to avoid the confusion that could be created by English sentences such as "John and Bill were good friends, ever since the day he first saw him" (who saw whom?). In Ojibwe, one of the two participants would be marked as proximate (whichever one was deemed more important), and the other marked as obviative.

Contents

Gender

Rather than a gender contrast such as masculine/feminine, Ojibwe instead distinguishes between animate and inanimate. Animate nouns are generally living things, and inanimate ones generally nonliving things, although this is not a fast rule due to the cultural understanding on if the noun possesses a "spirit" or not (generally, if it can move, it possesses a "spirit"). Objects which have great spiritual importance for the Ojibwe — such as rocks — are very often animate rather than inanimate, for example. Some words are distinguished purely by their gender; for example, mitig can mean either "tree" or "stick:" if it is animate (plural mitigoog), it means "tree," and if it is inanimate (plural mitigoon), it means "stick."

Number

Number in Ojibwe is a simple singular/plural contrast. Nouns and pronouns can be either singular or plural, and verbs inflect for the number of their subject and object, although some nouns and verbs lack singular forms. Plural forms differ from word to word depending on the word's gender, root, and historical stress. By examining the plural form of the word, one can generally determine the word's gender and root. Animate plurals end in -g, while inanimate plural nouns (and obviative nouns) end in -n. The underlying form of a root determines the "linking vowel" — the vowel that appears before the plural suffix (-g or -n) but after the root itself.

Roots ending in a vowel take no linking vowels; they simply add the plural consonant after the final vowel. Roots which end in an underlying consonant other than -w or -y take a linking vowel -a-. However, if the final consonant of the root is an underlying -w or -y, there are several possible linking vowels. There are two different types of underlying -w and -y, known as "fortis" and "lenis." Underlying fortis -w and -y (which will be written here as <W> and <Y>) are lost before the addition of the linking vowel, which for -W is -oo- and for -Y is -ii-. Underlying lenis -w and -y are not lost before the linking vowel, which as with other consonants is -a-. Most roots which end in an underlying -w or -y (fortis or lenis) drop them or show -o or -i when not followed by any suffixes. These tendencies can be summarized in the table below:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > >
Underlying
final
phoneme(s) 		Singular Plural Example
Underlying
root 		Singular Plural Gloss
-V -Vn/-Vg
ajidamoo ajidamoog "squirrels"
-C -Can/-Cag
miin miinan "blueberries"
-Ø/-o -wan/-wag
nigig nigigwag "otters"
-Ø/-i -yan/-yag
giigoonh giigoonyag "fishes"
-Ø/-o -oon/-oog
mitig mitigoon "sticks"
-Ø/-i -iin/-iig
aniib aniibiig "elms"
-wi -wiin/-wiig
anwi anwiin "bullets"

Person

Ojibwe persons consists of seven each of singulars and plurals, not necessarily corresponding to each other. This staggering number of persons arise from taking in consideration of animate/inanimate, proximate/obviative and singular/plural. Characteristics of the resulting 14 persons are built into Ojibwe nouns and pronouns, thus dictating which verb forms would be used in speech. In nouns, all 14 forms of persons may or may not present themselves, but all 14 forms of persons generally do appear with pronouns.

Pronouns

Ojibwe pronouns, along with distinguishing singular and plural number and first, second, third, and fourth (obviative) persons, also carry a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural. Pronouns may present themselves either as independent words or as series of prefixes and suffixes.

An inclusive first person plural indicates that the pronoun includes the addressee, i.e., "we including you" (giinawind). An exclusive first person plural indicates that the addressee is not included, i.e., "we excluding you" (niinawind).

The other personal pronouns are the first singular niin, second singular giin, third singular wiin, second plural giinawaa, and third plural wiinawaa.

Like the independent words, Ojibwe pronoun prefixes indicates first person with n-, second person with g- and third person with w-. However, the associated suffixes for these persons will be different depending on if the word is a verb or a noun.

Word begins with... 1 2 3
a aa e i (n)ind- gid- od-
oo n- g- od-
ii n- g- w-
o (n)indo- gido- odo-
b (n)im- gi- (o)-
d g ' j z zh (n)in- gi- (o)-
p t k h ch m n s w y ni- gi- (o)-
In many Ojibwe speaking communities, the first person prefix is used without the initial n. Due to vowel syncope in some communities, those prefixes are further reduced without the initial i. However, among Saulteaux communities, the first person prefix nim- and nin- are instead reduced to ni-.

Ojibwe also has a set of demonstrative pronouns, distinguishing animate/inanimate, here/there/yonder/over here, singular/plural, and proximate/obviative. The demonstratives differ in their phonetic forms very significantly across Ojibwe dialects and communities, so this table, based on the Minnesota dialect of Southwestern Ojibwe, will not be entirely correct for many speakers:

Animate Inanimate
Singular Plural Obviative Singular Plural
Here wa'aw ongow onow o'ow onow
There a'aw ingiw iniw i'iw iniw
Over there/
Yonder 		a'awedi ingiwedig iniwedin i'iwedi iniwedin
Over here wa'awedi ongowedig onowedin o'owedi onowedin

Ojibwe also has a set of interrogative pronouns (awenen, "who?", awegonen, "what?"), dubitative pronouns (awegwen, "I don't know who", wegodogwen, "I don't know what"), and "indefinite" pronouns (awiiya, "someone", gegoo, "something," both of which can be preceded by gaawiin or akina to mean "no one, nothing" and "everyone, everything," respectively).

Verbs

Ojibwe verbs mark not only information on the subject (their animacy, person, and plurality), but also on the object. There are several different classes of verbs in the language, which differ based on whether they are transitive or intransitive, and whether they take animate or inanimate subjects. The main classes of verbs are abbreviated VAI (intransitive with animate subject), VII (intransitive with inanimate subject), VTA (transitive with animate object), and VTI (transitive with inanimate object).

Verbs mark tenses with prefixes (gii-, past, ga- and da-, future, and wii-, desiderative future), but also can take a myriad of affixes known as "preverbs", which convey a great amount of additional information about an action. For example, the preverb izhi- means "in such a way," and so its addition to the verb root -ayaa-, "to be," makes the verb izhi-ayaa, "to be a certain way." The preverb bimi-, "along," combines with the verb root -batoo-, "to run," to form bimibatoo, "to run along, run by."

Furthermore, there are three so-called "orders" of Ojibwe verbs. The basic one is called Independent Order, and is simply the indicative mood. There is also a Conjunct Order, which is most often used with verbs in subordinate clauses, in questions (other than simple yes-no questions), and with participles (paritciples in Ojibwe are verbal nouns, whose meaning is roughly equivalent to "someone who is (VERB), does (VERB)," for example, the word for "traveler," bebaamaadizid, is the third singular conjunct of babaamaadizi, "to travel about," and literally means "someone who travels about"). The final order is the Imperative Order, used with commands and corresponding to the imperative mood.

There are three imperatives in Ojibwe: the immediate imperative, used to indicate that the action must be completely right away (nibaan!, "Sleep (right now)!"), the delayed imperative, used to indicate that the action should be completely eventually, but not immediately (nibaakan!, "Sleep (in a little bit)!"), and the prohibitive imperative, used to indicate that the action is prohibited (nibaaken!, "Don't sleep!").

All verbs can also be marked for four "modes:" indicative (neutral), dubitative (the speaker is unsure about the validity of what they are saying, for example: bakade, "he is hungry," but bakadedog, "he must be hungry; he could be hungry"), preterit (which emphasizes that the action occurred in the past, and is also used to refer to attempted or intended but uncompleted actions, for example: imaa ninamadabi, "I'm sitting there," but imaa ninamadabiban, "I was sitting there; I meant to sit there"), or preterit-dubitative (which expresses doubt about a past action: imaa namadabigoban, "she must have sat there; she could have sat there").

Intransitives

As an example of some of the Ojibwe verbal distinctions at work, consider the conjugation of positive indicative long-vowel-final VAI verbs (using the example nibaa, "to sleep"):

Independent
Subject Conjugation Example Gloss
Niin ni _ 0 ninibaa "I sleep"
Giin gi _ 0 ginibaa "You sleep"
Wiin 0 _ 0 nibaa "S/he/it sleeps"
Obviative 0 _ wan nibaawan "S/he/it (obviate) sleeps"
Indefinite 0 _ m nibaam "Someone sleeps"
Niinawind ni _ min ninibaamin "We (exclusive) sleep"
Giinawind gi _ min ginibaamin "We (inclusive) sleep"
Giinawaa gi _ m ginibaam "You guys sleep"
Wiinawaa 0 _ wag nibaawag "They sleep"
Conjunct
Subject Conjugation Example Gloss
Niin 0 _ yaan nibaayaan "That I sleep"
Giin 0 _ yan nibaayan "That you sleep"
Wiin 0 _ d nibaad "That s/he/it sleeps"
Obviative 0 _ nid nibaanid "That s/he/it (obviate) sleeps"
Indefinite 0 _ ng nibaang "That someone sleeps"
Niinawind 0 _ yaang nibaayaang "That we (exclusive) sleep"
Giinawind 0 _ yang nibaayang "That we (inclusive) sleep"
Giinawaa 0 _ yeg nibaayeg "That you guys sleep"
Wiinawaa 0 _ waad nibaawaad "That they sleep"
Imperative
Subject Conjugation Example Gloss
Giin 0 _ n nibaan "You! Sleep!"
Giinawind 0 _ daa nibaadaa "Let's sleep!"
Giinawaa 0 _ k/g nibaak
nibaag 		"You guys! Sleep!"

Transitives

Ojibwe, as with other Algonquian languages, also exhibits a direct/inverse system, in which transitive verbs are marked for whether or not the direction of the action follows a "person hierarchy" of the language. The person hierarchy in Ojibwe is second person > first person > null person > third person (proximate) > third person obviative > zeroeth person. Ojibwe has no case distinctions among agent, patient and experiencer theta roles, so in a transitive verb with two participants, the only way to distinguish subject from object is through direct/inverse/goal suffixes.

Direction
Type 		ACTOR DIRECTION GOAL Theme
DIRECT → 3 -aa-
INVERSE ← 3 -igw-
1-GOAL (2) → 1 -i-
2-GOAL (1) → 2 -iN-

For the first person and second person GOALs, their ACTORs are specified if the words are in their Independent Order, and can also be known as local direct (first person GOAL) and local inverse (second person GOAL). A DIRECT suffix indicates that the action is performed by someone higher on the person hierarchy on someone lower on the person hierarchy (e.g., by the addressee on the speaker, or by a proximate third person on an obviative):

obizindawaan
o- bizindaw -aa -n
3- listen.to -DIRECT -3OBVIATIVE
"He listens to the other one"

An inverse suffix indicates that the action is performed by someone lower on the person hierarchy on someone higher on the person hierarchy (e.g., by the speaker on the addressee, or by an obviative third person on a proximate):

obizindawigoon
o- bizindaw -igoo -n
3- listen.to -INVERSE -3OBVIATIVE
"The other one listens to him"

As can be seen, the only difference between these two verbs is the direct/inverse opposition, rather than case markers (or word order, when distinct nominals are used). An inverse verb is not equivalent to a passive verb. There is a separate passivity marker, distinct from the direct/inverse markers:

bizindaawaa
bizindaw -aa
listen.to -PASSIVE
"He is listened to"

Nouns

Nouns distinguish plurality, animacy, obviation, and case with suffixes. Animacy is only overtly marked on plural nouns. There are no core cases to distinguish categories such as "subject" or "object," but rather various oblique cases, including a locative (e.g., wiisiniwigamig, "restaurant," wiisiniwigamigong, "in the restaurant") and a vocative plural (e.g., Ojibwedog, "(you) Ojibwes!"). There are also pejorative (e.g., jiimaan, "canoe," jiimaanish, "worthless canoe"), diminutive (e.g., zhooniyaa, "money," zhooniyaans, "coin"), and preterit (which marks a deceased or no-longer existent person or object, e.g. nookomis, "my grandmother," nookomisiban, "my late grandmother") suffixes.

Some nouns are considered "dependent" and cannot be presented by themselves. Instead, these dependent nouns are presented with pronoun prefixes/suffixes attached to them.

Other nouns are derived from verbs by transforming them to their participle form. Of the choices, third person (and thus third person plural) is the most common form. Though each class of verbs may have their own pariciple-forming patterns, for simplicity, only the VAI neutral mode, positive participles are shown in the example, again, using nibaa (sleep).

VAI Neutral Mode, Positive Participles
Subject Conjugation Example Gloss
Niin 0 _ yaan nebaayaan "Sleeper"
Giin 0 _ yan nebaayan "Sleeper"
Wiin 0 _ d nebaad "Sleeper"
Obviative 0 _ nijin nebaanijin "Sleeper"
Indefinite 0 _ ng nebaang "Sleeper"
Niinawind 0 _ yaang nebaayaang "Sleepers"
Giinawind 0 _ yang nebaayang "Sleepers"
Giinawaa 0 _ yeg nebaayeg "Sleepers"
Wiinawaa 0 _ jig nebaajig "Sleepers"

Adjectives

Ojibwe has no adjectives per se, but rather verbs which function as adjectives. Thus, instead of saying "the flower is blue," you would say something which is actually closer to "the flower blues" (ozhaawashkwaa waabigwan). Ojibwe does have a copula in some situations, in that it has a verb (several, in fact) that can be translated as "to be" and used in situations to equate one thing with another; however, a copula is not always used in Ojibwe—for example, when using demonstrative pronouns (jiimaan o'ow, "this is a canoe").

Modifications of sound

Ojibwe initials of words may experience morphological changes under two modificaiton strategies: initial vowel change and initial syllable reduplication.

Initial vowel change

In general, verbs in conjunct and partitive orders and nouns of subjunctive order change the vowel quality of the first syllable in the manner shown in the table below.

unchanged changed
-a- -e-
-aa- -ayaa-
-e- -aye-
-i- -e-
-ii- -aa-
-o- -we-
-oo- -waa-

However, in some words beginning in dan-, dazh-, das-, dash- or daa- instead take on the prefix en- to form endan-, endazh-, endas-, endash- or endaa-. The directional prefix bi-, meaning "over here," instead becomes ba-.

Initial syllable reduplication

Words typically conveying repetitive actions have their very first syllable experience reduplication. Reduplication may be found in both verbs and in nouns. Vowel syncope process Eastern Ojibwe and Odaawaa experiences happen after the word has gone through reduplication. The most general reduplication pattern for the initial syllable is C1V1- → C1V2C2V1- but the table below shows the most common reduplication strategies.

In some words, the reduplicated consonant shifts from their lenis value to their fortis value. Yet in some stems, initial Cw- retains the -w- while others do not. Those words experiencing the prefix en- may change to in- before experiencing reduplication.

Syntax

As Ojibwe is highly synthetic, word order and sentence structure is relatively free, since a great deal of information is already encoded onto the verb. The subject can go before or after the verb, as can the object. In general, whichever participant is deemed more important or in-focus by the speaker is placed first, before the verb, and the less important participant follows the verb. Ojibwe tends to prefer a VS order (verb-subject) when subjects are specified with separate nominals or pronouns (e.g., bakade a'aw asabikeshiinh, be.hungry that.there.ANIMATE net.make.PEJORATIVE.CONTEMPTIVE, "that spider is hungry").

See also

References

External links

 

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