Nouns

Nouns in general are words that refer to persons, places, or things. Some randomly-selected examples of English nouns include the words Listuguj, Mary, woman, and table. These same words are also nouns in Mi'gmaq: Listuguj, Mali, e'pit, and ptauti.

In some ways, Mi'gmaq nouns resemble English nouns (for instance, you can have singular and plural versions of a noun). In other ways, they differ from English (for instance, there is a feature of nouns that we call "animacy" that English doesn't really display).

Plural Nouns

For more detail, see Plural Nouns

"Number" refers to how many of something there are. In both English and Mi'gmaq, there are two numbers for nouns: singular (only one of something) and plural (two or more of something). In English, a plural noun often looks like the singular plus an -s at the end, for example, girl becomes girls. In Mi'gmaq, there are two things you can add to a noun in order to make it plural, depending on whether the noun is animate or inanimate (for more information on these terms, see the next section). For inanimate nouns, like ptauti 'table' as shown in (1), you generally add -l to the end of the word (or sometimes you make the last sound of the word longer). For animate nouns, like ji'nm 'man' as shown in (2), you add -ug or -ig or -oq depending on the particular noun.

1. ptauti,  ptauti-l  
   table,   table-PL  
   'table, tables'

1. ji'nm,  ji'nm-ug  
   man,    man-PL    
   'man, men'

If you've looked at number in Mi'gmaq verbs, you may have noticed that Mi'gmaq verbs make a distinction between singular, dual (two participants), and plural (three or more participants). However, for nouns, the only distinction is between one and more than one.

Counting

For more detail, see Numerals and Classifiers

There are some categories of nouns in Mi'gmaq that require special ways of counting. This could be compared to how in English, we say "a pair of pants" rather than "one pants" or "two pants"--though admittedly, the Mi'gmaq system is more compex than that. In Mi'gmaq, nouns are split into categories that are grouped together with specific counting words for that specific category. These are the most common groups, using examples from Hewson & Francis (1990):

• long and round objects, such as bottles, candles, and even people
• round objects, such as potatoes, balls, and apples
• money
• units of time
  • days
  • years, months
• classes, groups, types of things
• dimensions, weights and measures

Animacy

For more detail, see Animacy

All nouns in Mi'gmaq belong to one of two categories, animate and inanimate. Animate nouns generally refer to things that are alive, such as people or animals, but other words such as containers and some types of food or clothing can also be animate. Inanimate nouns generally refer to things that are not alive, such as places and objects like rocks and tables. Some examples are below:

1. lpatuj  
   boy.AN  
   'boy (animate)'

1. mu'in    
   bear.AN  
   'bear (animate)'

1. tuop'ti      
   window.INAN  
   'window (inanimate)'

1. guntew     
   rock.INAN  
   'rock (inanimate)'

Animacy is important because it influences how to make the plural of a noun, and what form of verb to use with it. This also means that if you see a noun in a sentence and you want to try to figure out whether it it is animate or inanimate, there are a few things you can look for in addition to meaning: if its plural is -ug/-ig/-oq/-g, then it's animate, or if it's -l/long consonant then it's inanimate (see the section above for examples). If the noun is the subject of a sentence, then it's almost definitely animate, because only animate beings can do things. If the noun is the object of a sentence, the verb will have a different form depending on whether it's a VTA (animate) or VTI (inanimate).

1. nemi-g  epit      
   see-TA  woman.AN  
   'I see the woman'

1. nemi-tu  ptauti      
   see-TI   table.INAN  
   'I see the table'

Some words can change from being animate to inanimate. For example, the names of animals are animate, but when you eat their meat, the meat is inanimate. This is expressed by adding the ending -ewei to the name of the animal.

1. plamu   
   salmon  
   'salmon (live fish)'

1. plamu-ewei   
   salmon-EWEI  
   'salmon meat, salmon steak'

Possession

For more detail, see Possession

Possession covers a whole range of relationships between nouns, not necessarily relationships where there is a possession and an owner. In English, possession covers expressions such as:

• my umbrellas
• Tom's sister
• Jamie's leg
• a friend of Alice's
• the music of Beethoven

The verbs used in these sentences can also be thought of as "possessive":

• I have a cake.
• This dog belongs to me.

As mentioned before, these relationships aren't always strictly of ownership, but can be interpreted as a type of closeness or relatedness--so while the umbrella may be my possession in the strictest sense of the word, we also shouldn't think of Tom's sister being his possession. Instead, we use possession to show that a relationship exists between the two nouns in question.

Mi'gmaq possession has one very important feature that English speakers will have to get used to. This is related to the idea of alienability. So when something is alienable, the relationship between the two nouns is changeable; "my umbrella" shows an alienable relationship, because I can give away the umbrella, and then it is no longer mine and the relationship dissolves. "Tom's sister," however, shows an inalienable relationship because no matter what, Tom and his sister will always be related.

Mi'gmaq inalienable nouns include...

• body parts (i.e. 'gpitn, "your hand," and nunji, "my head")
• family members (i.e. nuj, "my father," and ugmisl "his/her big sister")
• a couple exceptions (i.e. nitap, "my friend" is inalienable, even though it's a relationship that might change.)

Mi'gmaq alienable nouns include...

• everything else (i.e. 'gtsipuminu, "our river," and 'ntptautim, "my table," and ugtwigatign "his/her book," and so on and so forth)

Pronouns

For more detail, see Pronouns

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.

Demonstratives

For more detail, see Demonstratives

A demonstrative is a word that can be paired with a noun, and generally helps people differentiate between two different nouns in conversation. In English, "this," "that," "these," and "those" are all demonstratives--you can pair them with nouns ("this cat," "those hats") but not verbs or lone adjectives.

In Mi'gmaq, we also see at least two demonstratives:

• ula, for things that are close to the speaker, which seems to correspond to English "this"
• ala, for things that are further from the speaker, which seems to correspond to English "that"

However, in Mi'gmaq they seem to be used a little differently from English. We have seen grammatical Mi'gmaq phrases such as ula nemis, which would translate in English to "this my big sister," a badly-formed phrase.

Another grammatical Mi'gmaq phrase where a demonstrative looks different from its English counterpart is seen below:

1. Piel  eig   ula   tet.  
   Piel  be.3  this  here  
   'Piel is right here. // Piel is at this place'

1. Piel  eig   ala   tet.  
   Piel  be.3  that  here  
   'Piel is over there. // Piel is at that place.'

Obviation

For more detail, see Obviation

Mi'gmaq is a language with a feature called obviation. (The wiki will also address it as it applies to verbs, so check that part out too!) Obviation is a way of differentiating between third persons. The usual set of persons is first (in English "me/we"), second ("you"), and third ("him/her/them"). Obviation makes a "closer to speakers" third person (often called proximate) which contrasts with a "further from speakers" third person (often called obviate). (Payne 1997: 212)

In Mi'gmaq, the obviate is generally marked with the suffix -l, or -tl, though variation does apply. Though the circumstances of its appearance vary depending on the context of your conversation, there are certain words where it is guaranteed to appear.

For instance, "his/her friend" is always going to be marked as obviate because in that situation, there are two "third persons": the him/her in question, and then the friend. The friend is more "distant" from the discourse, so it will appear as below, with the obviate marker on the end:

1. w-itap-al     
   3-friend-OBV  
   'his/her friend'

Diminutive

For more detail, see Diminutives

This is a simple feature of Mi'gmaq that English doesn't have a direct match for. It is a suffix, which is a part of a word that can attach at the end, like English -less as in "fearless," "peerless," "hopeless," etc. The same way as the -less suffix in English means "without [the noun it attaches to]," this Mi'gmaq suffix means "little [noun]". It cannot attach to every noun, though it is possible that your meaning may be understood even if you put it on a slightly strange noun. Some examples of words where it might appear include...

• lpa'tuj, "boy" becomes lpa'tu'ji'j, "little boy"
• gjigan, "city," becomes gjiganji'j, "village"
• jijgluewj, "sheep," becomes jijgluewji'j, "lamb"

Note that you can't always assume that the ending -ji'j is going to be a diminutive. The word for "bird," jipji'j, ends in -ji'j, but there is no word meaning "larger bird" that is pronounced jip.