Person and number

(intro)

From the Nouns article

This information has been copied from the subsection ==Pronouns== of the Nouns article. It has not been deleted from there, although ideally this section could be shortened once this article is complete

A pronoun is a word that can substitute for a noun that is already known from the context of the conversation.

• Q: What did Mary do with the book?
  • A: Mary gave the book to Peter. (all nouns - sounds too long)
  • A: She gave it to him. (all pronouns - we don't know who "him" is)
  • A: She gave it to Peter. (pronouns for known information, nouns for new information - sounds more natural)
  • A: She gave it to me. (ok as long as we know who is talking so we know who "me" is)

Some examples of pronouns in English are I, me, you, he, she, her, him, it, we, us, they, and them. Pronouns can be classified in several ways. First of all, just like nouns, there are singular and plural pronouns in Mi'gmaq. Secondly, pronouns are different depending on the situation that they refer to, which is referred to as person. So if the person or group who is speaking is talking about themself, then this is the first person (English "I/me/we/us"). The person or group that the speaker is talking to is the second person (English "you"), and an additional person or group is the third person (English "she/he/him/her/they/them"). Unlike English, Mi'gmaq also makes a distinction when talking about yet another person or group in addition to the third: the obviative, also sometimes called the fourth person.

Below we can see a table of Mi'gmaq pronouns, organized according to number and person. An additional thing to notice is that Mi'gmaq makes a distinction between when someone is talking on behalf of a group that includes the listener (first person inclusive) and when the group does not include the listener (first person exclusive).

	Singular	Dual/Plural
13 (excl)	ni'n	ninen
12 (incl)	n/a	ginu
2	gi'l	gilew
3	negm	negmow

Mi'gmaq uses pronouns in somewhat different contexts compared to how English does. In English, you can't tell from a verb by itself who is doing the action or who has the action being done to them. For example, "see" doesn't tell us anything about who is seeing or being seen, so the only way to know this is by having nouns or pronouns. Mi'gmaq verbs do give you this information. For example, nemi'g can only mean that "I see an animate thing," and if we want to change who/what is seeing or being seen we have change parts of the verb (much more information about this in the Verbs section). This means that it isn't necessary to use pronouns to express this information again, since we already know it. Saying ni'n nemitu negm is therefore not quite like saying "I see him/her". Since we didn't have to use ni'n or negm, the fact that we're choosing to say them means that we want to emphasize these particular people. For example, if someone asked you "Did she see you?" you might want to emphasize the opposite by saying "No, it was me that saw her", but in a normal sentence you probably wouldn't bother to do this.

From the Verbs article

This information has been taken from the ==Person & number== section of the Verbs article. It is no longer present there.

Person and number distinctions refer to the specific characteristics of the subject and, if present, the object. Person refers to the relationship of the people involved, the speaker, 1st person, the listener, 2nd person, or another, 3rd person. But not only animate persons are referred to, as inanimate things, 0 person, can also be referred to.

An additional distinction, shared by many Algonquian languages, is a distinction between a 3rd person, i.e. John, and a 4th person, i.e. John's brother, who is an additional 3rd person in the sentence (or even in the conversation). For more information see Obviation.

person	term	gloss
1	first person	'I/me'
2	second person	'you'
3	third person (animate)	'she/her' 'he/him' 'it'
4	fourth person	'her daughter'
0	third person (inanimate)	'it'

In addition, the number of people involved is also important, such as singular, a single person, or plural, 2 or more people. Mi'gmaq makes an additional distinction between dual, 2 people, and plural, 3 or more people. As well, with 1st person plural 'we', Mi'gmaq makes a distinction between whether the dual and plural involve 1st person and the 2nd person, called inclusive, or the 1st person and a 3rd person, called the exclusive.

Below is a summary of the full list of distinctions made. For more information see Person & Number marking.

person		singular	dual	plural
1	13	I	we (me & another)	we (me & others)
	12		we (me & you)	we (me & you-all), (me, you & another/others)
2		you	you-all	you-all
3		s/he	they (animate)	they (animate)
0		it	they (inanimate)	they (inanimate)