Obviation

This page is meant to be an introduction to obviation in Mi'gmaq only; for further details, please see the linked pages below.

Mi'gmaq is a language with a feature called obviation. It is a way of distinguishing between different third persons: a "closer to speakers" third person known as the proximate and a "further from speakers" third person known as the obviate, also referred to as the 4th person (Payne 1997: 212). The obviate is marked on both nouns and verbs, as discussed below.

Obviation on Nouns

If there are two animate third person participants in a phrase, the object will usually be marked as the obviate by adding -l, -al or -tl to the end of the singular noun (plural nouns are not marked for obviation; Manyakina 2012). So, for example, in the phrase The deer sees the bear, the bear will receive an obviate suffix, as in the example below:

1. lentug  nemi-at-l    mui'n-al  
   deer    see-3>3-OBV  bear-OBV  
   'The deer sees the bear'

This makes it easy to keep track of who is doing what, especially if the word order changes:

1. nemi-at-l    mui'n-al  lentug  
   see=3>3-OBV  bear-OBV  deer    
   'The deer sees the bear'

Obviation can also be marked on proper nouns, like names:

1. Mali  gesal-at-l    Piel-al    
   Mary  love-3>3-OBV  Peter-OBV  
   'Mary loves Peter'

Some possessed nouns necessarily have obviation marked on them since there are two third persons involved: a possessor (the proximate third person) and a person who is the object of possession (the obviate third person), as in 'his or her friend':

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

Obviation on Verbs

Proposed page: Obviation and Verbs

This section may need to be shortened once obviation is covered further on other pages (namely the VAI and VTA pages and/or the proposed Obviation and Verbs page).

In addition to being marked on nouns, obviation is also marked on verbs. This is most apparent in the transitive animate (or TA) verbs, such as nemiatl, 'he or she sees him or her', and gesalatl 'he or she loves him or her', above. In general, these verbs will take either a singular obviate ending, -l, or a plural obviate ending, -i (and sometimes -a), depending on whether the obviate is singular or plural. Some examples are given below:

Obviate	Full Ending	Meaning	Example
-l	-at-l	3>4	gesalatl, 'he or she likes him or her (OBV)'
	-a'tit-l	3PL>4	gesala'titl, 'they like him or her (OBV)'
-i	-aj-i	3>4PL	gesalaji, 'he or she likes them (OBV)'
	-a'tij-i	3PL>4PL	gesala'tiji, 'they like them (OBV)'

In addition to proximate third persons acting on obviate third persons, obviate persons may also act on other obviate persons. An example taken from a written transcription of a story about the puglatmu'jg, or little people, is given below:

1. gs'gat-a'nita      
   disappear-4PL>4PL  
   'They (OBV) disappeared into them (the mountains; OBV)'

Obviate third persons may also be the subject of animate intransitive (or AI) verbs if the discourse context allows it. For the singular form of these verbs, the obviate ending is added to the regular third person proximate ending, as so (example taken from Manyakina 2012):

1. ug-tus-l             etlenm-ilit-l  
   3.POSS-daughter-OBV  laugh-3-OBV    
   'his or her daughter is laughing'

For the plural form, an entirely different ending is used for the obviate form (the dual form of the obviate for these verbs has not been seen as of yet):

1. wig-ulti'nij  
   live-4PL      
   'They (OBV) live'

Obviation and Discourse

Main Page: Obviation and Discourse

When there are two third persons within a given stretch of discourse in Mi'gmaq, it is usually one that is marked as proximate and the other as obviate, as in the sentence Lentug nemiatl muinal, above. When there are more than two third persons in a given stretch of discourse, only one may be proximate; all others must be obviate, as shown in the example below (taken from Manyakina 2012):

1. Piel   ignmu-at-l    Mali-al   tap'tan-n   
   Peter  give-3>3-OBV  Mary-OBV  potato-OBV  
   'Peter gives Mary a potato''

References

• Manyakina, J. (2012) "An Analysis of Obviation in Mi'gmaq" Honour's Thesis. Montréal: Concordia University.
• Payne, T.E. (1997) "Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wilmot, Joe, prepared by. "Puglatmu'jg"