Revision as of 22:06, 14 May 2012

Verbs are used to describe actions, activities, or events. They are the central component of a sentence in Mi'gmaq and are made up of many different pieces of information. They contain enough information that they can represent a complete sentence, and are often the only element in a sentence. Some examples of English verbs include: am, seeing, happen, and gave. Some examples of Mi'gmaq verbs are eig 's/he is there, exists', amalgan 'you dance', and nemitu 'I see it'. Note that English verbs cannot form a sentence by themselves, while Mi'gmaq verbs can.

There are several characteristics that are found in both nouns and verbs, including Animacy, Obviation and Person and number marking, which are discussed in their respective articles. In general, a Mi'gmaq verb may contain the following elements, of which the ones in parentheses are optional.

(preverbs) - stem - final - (negation) - person/number - (tense) - (3rdPL/obviative)

An example of each of these portions is shown below. The remainder of this article will discuss each of these portions, beginning with the required ones and moving on to the optional ones.

**pogjuangitelmag'p**
(preverb)	stem	final	(negation)
poqju	angitelm	ag'	p
'begin'	'think'	I (1) > her/him(3)	PAST
'I began to think about her/him'

Obligatory Parts

Stems

Verbs in Mi'gmaq can describe events, comparable to verbs such as in English, and the qualities of nouns, comparable to adjectives in English. Verbs that describe events include nem- 'see' and gelus- 'speak' and verbs that describe nouns include maqtaw- 'black' and ewe'g'- 'loose'. For more information see Verb stems. [Let's add more information about initials, medials & finals as we go along]

But verb roots cannot stand on their own. They minimally need to show information about the subject, and if relevant, the object.

Final

Transitivity refers to how many people, things, or groups need to be involved in the action of the verb. If the verb only has a subject, we call it intransitive, and if it has both a subject and an object, we call it transitive.

Transitivity interacts with Animacy to form a 4 way classification of verbs: intransitive verbs with an animate subject [VAI], intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject [VII}, transitive verbs with an animate subject and object [VTA], and transitive verbs with an animate subject and an inanimate object [VTI], each of which has their own page.

**Algonquian verb classes**
	Intransitive	Transitive
Animate	VAI	VTA
Inanimate	VII	VTI

Person and Number Marking

This section is a description of how person and number are marked on verbs. For a description of what these categories are and how they function in general in Mi'gmaq, see Person and number

Person and number marking on the verb indicates characteristics of its subject and its object, if it has one. These markings change their appearance depending on what the final is.

Mood

Also known as Mode. For more detail, see Mood

'Mode describes the speaker's attitude toward a situation, including the speaker's belief in its reality, or likelihood.' (Payne, 1997; 244) In each class, there are a variety of different mode's which can be expressed. Most can be expressed in different tenses and in the affirmative or the negative. Below is a table, based on Pacifique's grammar (as translated in Lesson 10 in Hewson & Francis (1990), although ), that summarizes these observations using the first conjugation of VAI (intransitive verb with animate subject) with third person subject agreement.

mode	teluis- 'name'	gloss
Indicative	teluis-in	'Your name is...'
Imperative	tluis-i	'Be so named'
'When...' (Subjunctive)	teluis-inl/-ineg	'when your name is...'
'If...' (Subjunctive)	tluis-in	'if your name is...'
Conditional	teluis-igg	'Your name would be...'
Subordinative	g-tluis-in	'that your name is...'

Tense

For more detail, see Tense

A sentence can refer to a time period which is the same or different from the time when it was spoken. This is called tense and this is often marked on verbs as an ending (suffix). In Mi'gmaq, verbs can be expressed in present, past, and future. Aspect marking is similar to tense, i.e. imperfective, but is usually done with preverbs; for more detail see Aspect. Generally, present is the default and not marked. Past is often marked with -p, as shown in below, but this is not always the case. This -p(n) is also argued to mark evidentiality as well [come in Jenny!]. Future tense is often marked with a vowel reduction in the verb stem, as shown below.

teluis- 'to be named' Indicative mode
tense	teluis- 'name'	gloss
present	teluis-it	'her/his name is...'
past	teluis-iss/-i(s)p	'her/his name was...'
future	tluis-itew	'her/his name will be...'

Negation

For more detail, see Negation

Affirmative sentences can be can be negated with the addition of a negative particle directly before the verb, usually mu. Verbs that are followed by this negative particle must have negative marking, -w or -u. We can see this contrast in the table below, where mu teluis-ig 'her/his name is...' is negated with the addition of the negative particle "mu" and the "-w" negative marker. In addition, the we can see the negated form of mu is ma when negating a sentence the future tense.

teluis- 'to be named' Indicative mode
tense	teluis- 'name'	gloss	negated form	gloss
present	teluis-it	'her/his name is...'	mu teluis-iwg	'her/his name isn't...'
future	tluis-itew	'her/his name will be...'	ma tluis-iwg	'her/his name will not be...'

Preverbs

For more detail, see Preverbs

A preverb is an element found at the left edge of a verb in Mi'gmaq that modifies the meaning of the root and any other preverbs to the right of it. Some of the meanings that are expressed in Mi'gmaq using preverbs are expressed in other languages such as English as adverbs (e.g. jaqal- "quickly, energetically"), prepositions (e.g. toqjuw- "up"), modal verbs (e.g. getu- "want (to)"), prefixes (e.g. minu- "re-"), other verbs (e.g. poqju- "begin (to)"), and other expressions (e.g. etl- "in the process of, be __ing"), although not all elements that belong to one of these categories in English are expressed as preverbs in Mi'gmaq, such as igtug "at, near (location)," which is found after nouns, not before verbs. Some examples of preverbs are found below (the preverb part is in bold)

'''poqju'''-wissugwatma-p                
'''begin'''-cook.3sg.anim.3sg.inan-past  
's/he is beginning to cook it '

'''newti'''-wissugwatma-p              
'''one'''-cook.3sg.anim.3sg.inan-past  
's/he cooks it alone (slot 2)'

'''getu-  poqju-  mamuni-     espi-   inn-ui'''-      sit   
'''want-  start-  high,very-  level-  people-lang'''  -3sg  
's/he wants to start to speak the people's language (Mi'gmaq) at a very high level'
(sample context: said of an enthusiastic student of Mi'gmaq)

To Do

Make collapsible table templates for verb paradigms. Instructions are linked to on the Style Guide, under tables.
Put a giant complex verb at the beginning and break it down into sections: (preverbs) - stem - finals - (negation) - person/number - (tense) - (3rdPL/obviative)
Collapse Mood section by taking out non-present tense forms (those will go in tense section). Use 2nd person subject to make imperative forms more intuitive.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Verbs are used to describe actions, activities, or events. They are the central component of a sentence in Mi'gmaq and are made up of many different pieces of information. They contain enough information that they can represent a complete sentence, and are often the only element in a sentence. Some examples of English verbs include: ''am'', ''seeing'', ''happen'', and ''gave''. Some examples of Mi'gmaq verbs are ''eig'' 's/he is there, exists', ''amalgan'' 'you dance', and ''nemitu'' 'I see it'. Note that English verbs cannot form a sentence by themselves, while Mi'gmaq verbs can.
-There are several characteristics that are found in both nouns and verbs, including [[Animacy]], [[Obviation]] and [[Person and number]] marking.
+There are several characteristics that are found in both nouns and verbs, including [[Animacy]], [[Obviation]] and [[Person and number]] marking, which are discussed in their respective articles. In general, a Mi'gmaq verb may contain the following elements, of which the ones in parentheses are optional.
 (preverbs) - stem - final - (negation) - person/number - (tense) - (3rdPL/obviative)
-The verb shown below is composed of the parts shown and roughly corresponds to a full sentence in English.
+An example of each of these portions is shown below. The remainder of this article will discuss each of these portions, beginning with the required ones and moving on to the optional ones.
 {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;  width: 300px; height: 200px;"
@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 |}
-This section will discuss some parts of verbs.
-==Verb roots==
+=Obligatory Parts=
+==Stems==
 Verbs in Mi'gmaq can describe events, comparable to verbs such as in English, and the qualities of nouns, comparable to adjectives in English. Verbs that describe events include nem- 'see' and gelus- 'speak' and verbs that describe nouns include maqtaw- 'black' and ewe'g'- 'loose'. For more information see [[Verb stems]]. [Let's add more information about initials, medials & finals as we go along]
@@ Line 40: / Line 41: @@
 But verb roots cannot stand on their own. They minimally need to show information about the subject, and if relevant, the object.
+==Final==
-==Animacy & transitivity==
-''For more detail, see [[Nouns]] or [[Animacy]]''
-Animacy is a classification of the status of a noun as animate or inanimate. This classification is often related to whether the noun is alive (''animate''), such as humans and animals, or not alive (''inanimate''), such as a chair and a table. But sometimes there may not be an obvious connection between the meaning of the noun and whether it is animate or inanimate. For example, containers tend to be animate, and some foods and items of clothing are animate (such as ''gmu'jmin'' 'raspberry') while others are inanimate (such as ''aloqoman'' 'grape').  This is similar to gender in other languages, such as in French, ''un couteau'' 'a knife' is masculine and ''la cuillère'' 'the spoon' is feminine.
 Transitivity refers to how many people, things, or groups need to be involved in the action of the verb. If the verb only has a subject, we call it ''intransitive'', and if it has both a subject and an object, we call it ''transitive''.
-Both animacy and transitivity are important and result in a 4 way classification of verbs: intransitive verbs with an animate subject [VAI], intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject [VII}, transitive verbs with an animate subject and object [VTA], and transitive verbs with an animate subject and an inanimate object [VTI]. Verbs within each classification have different forms to encode information. Please refer to the specific pages for each classification for the details of each.
+Transitivity interacts with [[Animacy]] to form a 4 way classification of verbs: intransitive verbs with an animate subject [VAI], intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject [VII}, transitive verbs with an animate subject and object [VTA], and transitive verbs with an animate subject and an inanimate object [VTI], each of which has their own page.
 {| border="1" style="text-align: center;  width: 250px; height: 150px;"
@@ Line 64: / Line 60: @@
 |}
-Depending on which classification the verb has, person and number marking will differ.
+==Person and Number Marking==
+''This section is a description of how person and number are marked on verbs. For a description of what these categories are and how they function in general in Mi'gmaq, see [[Person and number]]''
+Person and number marking on the verb indicates characteristics of its subject and its object, if it has one. These markings change their appearance depending on what the final is.
 ==Mood==

Difference between revisions of "Verbs"